M-type barium ferrite thin films were deposited onto sapphire (0 0 l) substrates by radio frequency magnetron sputtering. An ultra-thin layer about 20 nm was deposited and annealed before continuous deposition of the films up to 500 nm under different sputtering pressures: 0.2, 0.5, 0.8 and 1.0 Pa, respectively. It was found that the atomic ratios of Fe to Ba increased from 9.3 to 15.0 with the increase of the pressure. The films sputtered at all pressures have c-axis normal to the film plane by a four circle Xray diffractometer, which is an improvement of the films directly sputtered on the substrate. Needle-like grains were formed on the surface of the films under higher sputter pressure with bubble domains, which is originated from high magnetocrystalline anisotropy of the film. Magnetic hysteresis loops recorded by vibrating sample magnetometer agree with them, where in-plane and out-of-plane loops of the samples prepared under high sputtering pressures are quite different, while they are almost identical of the samples under low pressures. The influence of the sputtering pressure was understood by that with the increase of the pressure, resputtering of the films was increased. Nucleation with c-axis normal to the film plane was deteriorated. Thus samples prepared under high pressure have more needle-like crystallites which have c-axis parallel to the film plane. Crown Copyright (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.