Cobalt ferrite (CoFe2O4) thin film is epitaxially grown on (001) SrTiO3 (STO) by laser molecular beam epitaxy (LMBE). The growth modes of CoFe2O4 (CFO) film are found to be sensitive to laser repetition, the transitions from layer-by-layer mode to Stranski-Krastanov (SK) mode and then to island mode occur at the laser repetition of 3 and 5 Hz at 700 degrees C, respectively. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) results show that the CFO film on (001) SrTiO3 is compressively strained by the underlying substrate and exhibits high crystallinity with a full-width at half-maximum of 0.86 degrees. Microstructural studies indicate that the as-deposited CFO film is c-oriented island structure with rough surface morphology and the magnetic measurements reveal that the compressive strained CoFe2O4 film exhibits an enhanced out-of-plane magnetization (190 emu/cm(3)) with a large coercivity (3.8 kOe). (c) 2007 Published by Elsevier B.V.