Influence of oxygen background pressure on crystalline quality of SrTiO{sub 3} films grown on MgO by pulsed laser deposition

Journal Article · Mon Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 1997 · Applied Physics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.120011· OSTI ID:542515

Kalyanaraman, R; Vispute, R D; Oktyabrsky, S; Dovidenko, K; Jagannadham, K; Narayan, J ^[1]; Budai, J D ^[2]; Parikh, N; Suvkhanov, A ^[3]

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1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-7916 (United States)
2. Solid State Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831 (United States)
3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599 (United States)

We have systematically investigated the effect of oxygen partial pressure (P{sub O{sub 2}}) on the crystalline quality of SrTiO{sub 3} films grown on MgO (001) substrates using pulsed laser deposition and established optimized conditions for the growth of high-quality epitaxial films. The crystalline quality is found to improve significantly in the O{sub 2} pressure range of 0.5{endash}1 mTorr, compared to the films deposited at higher pressures of 10{endash}100 mTorr. The x-ray diffraction rocking curves for the films grown at P{sub O{sub 2}} of 1 mTorr and 100 mTorr yielded full width at half-maximum (FWHM) of 0.7{degree} and 1.4{degree}, respectively. The in-plane x-ray {phi} scans showed epitaxial cube-on-cube alignment of the films. Channeling yields {chi}{sub min} were found to be {lt}5{percent} for the 1 mTorr films and {approximately}14{percent} for 100 mTorr films. Thermal annealing of the SrTiO{sub 3} films in oxygen further improves the quality, and the 1 mTorr films give FWHM of 0.13{degree} and {chi}{sub min} of 1.7{percent}. In-plane misorientations of the annealed SrTiO{sub 3} films calculated using results of transmission electron microscopy are {plus_minus}0.7{degree} for 1 mTorr and {plus_minus}1.7{degree} for the 10 mTorr film. The high temperature superconducting (high-T{sub c}) Y{sub 1}Ba{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub 7{minus}{delta}} films grown on these SrTiO{sub 3}/MgO substrates showed a {chi}{sub min} of 2.0{percent} and transition temperature of {approximately}92K, indicating that SrTiO{sub 3} buffer layers on MgO can be used for growth of high-quality Y{sub 1}Ba{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub 7{minus}{delta}} thin film heterostructures for use in high-T{sub c} devices and next generation microelectronics devices requiring films with high dielectric constants. {copyright} {ital 1997 American Institute of Physics.}

• OSTI ID: 542515
• Journal Information: Applied Physics Letters, Journal Name: Applied Physics Letters Journal Issue: 12 Vol. 71; ISSN APPLAB; ISSN 0003-6951
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
CRYSTAL STRUCTURE
ENERGY BEAM DEPOSITION
HETEROJUNCTIONS
HIGH-TC SUPERCONDUCTORS
LASER RADIATION
OXYGEN
STRONTIUM COMPOUNDS
STRONTIUM TITANATES
SUBSTRATES
THIN FILMS
TRANSMISSION ELECTRON MICROSCOPY
X-RAY DIFFRACTION