Epitaxial La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 thin films grown on SrTiO3 buffered silicon substrates by reactive molecular‐beam epitaxy

La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 (LSMO) thin films (with a thickness of 10, 20, 60, 75, and 100 nm) were grown on SrTiO3 (STO)-buffered silicon (001) substrates by reactive molecular-beam epitaxy. Xray diffraction (XRD) revealed the heterostructures to be fully epitaxial with orientation relationship (001) LSMO jj (001) STO jj (001) Si and [100] LSMO jj [100] STO jj [110] Si. Root mean square roughness was about 0.5 nm as measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM) for films of 10-75 nm thicknesses, and about 1 nm for the 100 nm thick LSMO film. Normalized Hooge parameters in the (0.95 0.25) 10 30- (3.41 0.71) 10 30m3 range were measured at 300 K, which are comparable to the noise level typically measured in the best LSMO films on (001) STO substrates. Overall these very low noise LSMO films with thicknesses in the 10-100 nm range grown on STO/Si showed properties rivaling those of LSMO films deposited on (001) STO single crystal substrates, thus demonstrating their potential use for LSMO-based devices on silicon substrates.