See article: https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1406/1406.5809.pdf

How that might be possible - and whether it will be possible at all - will strongly depend on materials of both film and substrate. Also the film thickness will play a role and whether you have the tools available allowing you to handle the free-standing film without destroying it.

One possible trick might be to grow the film on NaCl and to dissolve the salt (e.g. in water) lateron. Again, it will depend on materials compatibility with such a procedure whether that would be acceptable for you.

Dear Prof. Fauth,

Thank you for the suggestion. If I grow film on NaCl. The film property may also change as its base is changing.

Of course it can. For your material and the properties you're interested in, you will have to find/invent the most suited solution to the problem.

Giving hints is very limited when you don't provide details on what is the aim of your query. In case this is for magnetometry (as some of your tags to the question might indicate) then other tricks may do the job.

In the article linked below, for magnetometry measurements a paramagnetic film was deposited on a diamagnetic substrate. the subject of interest, however were magnetic nanoparticles, existing in small abundance. Magnetometry was then (only) possible at the compensation temperature (diamagnetism being temperature-independent and paramagnetism not so), In this case that was sufficient (and much better than not doing magnetometry at all :-))

So you could imagine depositing some paramagnetic film on the back side of a diamagnetic substrate and find out the compensation temperature. Lateron you produce the thin film you're interested in on the front side. there might be many other ideas out there waiting for you to find them and try them out. Try being creative!! Good luck.

Article Nanoscaled alloy formation from self-assembled elemental Co ...

Dear Prof. Fauth,

I would like to do differential scanning calorimetry measurement. in this experiment, even if my film is ~200 nm, still it is not possible to see any absorption of heat in the material as substrate contribution is too large.

Please check for its possible interest concerning to your query: https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_best_way_to_remove_a_polyurethane_film_from_a_substrate_without_damaging_it2

Dear Shalu Pathak,

would you mind sharing what the materials and geometric dimensions of both film and substrate are, in your case?

Etching of HCl can not remove substrate from the film.

Dear Prof. Fauth,

The material is Heusler Alloy and dimension of the 60 nm thick film on 0.5 mm thick substrate with an area of 10mm by 10 mm.

Dear Shalu Pathak,

I am not quite familiar with the general requirements of DSC, but I suppose that in some way or another, thermal contact will have to be ade with the specimen (to ensure that a specimen temperature can be assigned). If that is to be mechanical, then your thin specimen will be quite fragile to say the least, especially on such large an area as the lateral sample dimensions you mention.

The question will again be whether the substrate material matters and to what extent (factors may be wetting/adhesion properties upon film growth, thermal load on the substrateduring growth, interface chemistry and whatever else might be important).

Maybe a useful question to solve would be to specify the minimum film area required to do the DSC provided you would actually have a solution with much reduced substrate volume.

If, for example, SiC or Si3N4 were acceptable as substrate materials, you could grow your films on ultrathin membranes of these materials, which are commercially available. However, these usually come on Si frames (afaik), and the "free standing" areas might not exceed 1mm2. (I have not checked up-to-date info on this). the membranes could easily be as thin as 100nm, however. Using advanced processing tools such as FIB, it might then be possible to cut out the film after growth. (caveat: FIB is usually done with energetic Ga ions, and there will be a residue of Ga implanted near the edges. One will have to investigate/estimate whether that is tolerable for your measurements). You would then have to implement save handling techniques for the extremely fragile specimen you produce this way.

I have also recently been told about available techniques of thinning STO substrates to below a micron (again on a limited area, of course), but I can't recall the technical details. Nevertheless this is another standard material which many people grow films on (e.g. oxides).

Wish you the best of success!