Magnetite, 'Fe₃O₄', with an inverse cubic spinel structure (a=0.8396 nm ) is known as a ferrimagnetic oxide exhibiting electrical conductivity due to hopping of spin-polarized electrons between ferrimagnetically ordered Fe²⁺ and Fe³⁺states. It is promising for novel applications based on spin-polarized transport due mainly to high Curie temperature ('T_c' = 858 K) which is an important advantage compared to other half-metallic oxides such as 'La_1-xSr_xMnO₃' (360 K), 'Sr₂FeMoO₆' (450 K), 'CrO₂' (395 K). For most of the applications, there is increasing need of fundamental and technological research of various hybrid device structures composed of high quality 'Fe₃O₄' layers, conducting underlayers and isolating barriers. In this work, thin films of 'Fe₃O₄' were grown in-situ at T=300-500^oC on both lattice-matched MgO and epitaxial conductive ITO/YSZ(100), 'LaNiO₃'/'NdGaO₃'(100),'La_0.66(Ca,Sr)_0.34O₃'/'NdGaO₃' underlayers by sputtering of metallic Fe target under a fixed Ar:'O₂' (30:1) gas mixture pressure of about 5 Pa. Reflected high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) and XRD investigations revealed epitaxial quality of the magnetite films grown on MgO and ITO/YSZ meanwhile the films prepared on perovskite underlayers were highly textured. We were focussing on in- and out-of-plane resistivity, resistance anomaly at the Vervey transition point ('T_V' = 120 K), magnetoresistance, magnetization and current versus voltage to elucidate the effect of substrate and deposition conditions on major parameters of the grown 'Fe₃O₄' films and to investigate interface properties of the 'Fe₃O₄'/'In₂O₃'<Sn>, 'Fe₃O₄'/'LaNiO₃' and 'Fe₃O₄'/'La_0.66(Ca,Sr)_0.33O₃' heterostructures. Current flow in the bilayer structures was modeled to investigate stability of the interfaces and to evaluate diffusion of oxygen in different layers.

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