Epitaxial properties of ZnO thin films on SrTiO{sub 3} substrates grown by laser molecular beam epitaxy

Journal Article · Mon Apr 09 04:00:00 EDT 2007 · Applied Physics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2719026· OSTI ID:20960210

Wei, X H; Li, Y R; Zhu, J; Huang, W; Zhang, Y; Luo, W B; Ji, H ^[1]

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1. State Key Laboratory of Electronic Thin Films and Integrated Devices, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054 (China) and School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010 (China)

Epitaxial ZnO thin films with different orientations have been grown by laser molecular beam epitaxy on (001)- (011)-, and (111)-orientated SrTiO{sub 3} single-crystal substrates. The growth behavior was in situ monitored by reflection high-energy electron diffraction, and the epitaxial orientation relations were reconfirmed by ex situ x-ray diffraction measurements. In the case of ZnO on SrTiO{sub 3}(001), four orthogonal domains coexisted in the ZnO epilayer, i.e., ZnO(110) parallel SrTiO{sub 3}(001) and ZnO[-111] parallel SrTiO{sub 3}<100>. For (011)- and (111)-orientated substrates, single-domain epitaxy with c axial orientation was observed, in which the in-plane relationship was ZnO[110] parallel SrTiO{sub 3}[110] irrespective of the substrate orientations. Additionally, the crystalline quality of ZnO on SrTiO{sub 3}(111) was better than that of ZnO on SrTiO{sub 3}(011) because of the same symmetry between the (111) substrates and (001) films. The obtained results can be attributed to the difference of the in-plane crystallographic symmetry. Furthermore, those alignments can be explained by the interface stress between the substrates and the films.

• OSTI ID: 20960210
• Journal Information: Applied Physics Letters, Journal Name: Applied Physics Letters Journal Issue: 15 Vol. 90; ISSN APPLAB; ISSN 0003-6951
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
CRYSTAL GROWTH
CRYSTALLOGRAPHY
ELECTRON DIFFRACTION
GRAIN ORIENTATION
INTERFACES
LASER MATERIALS
LASERS
LAYERS
MOLECULAR BEAM EPITAXY
MONOCRYSTALS
REFLECTION
SEMICONDUCTOR MATERIALS
STRONTIUM TITANATES
SUBSTRATES
SYMMETRY
THIN FILMS
X-RAY DIFFRACTION
ZINC OXIDES