Influence of oxygen background pressure on crystalline quality of SrTiO{sub 3} films grown on MgO by pulsed laser deposition
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-7916 (United States)
- Solid State Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831 (United States)
- 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, Vol. 71, Issue 12; Other Information: PBD: Sep 1997
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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