Journal of Crystal Growth, Vol.318, No.1, 586-589, 2011
Crystal quality and surface morphology of uniaxial oriented multilayer perovskite thin films grown by excimer laser assisted MOD
By means of an excimer laser-assisted metal organic deposition, a perfect uniaxial oriented Dion-Jacobson perovskite RbLaNb2O7 thin film and a multilayer film SrTiO3/RbLaNb2O7 on an amorphous borosilicate glass substrate has been successfully prepared. The films were crystallized only by an excimer laser irradiation in air at 400 degrees C after a deposition of metal-organic solution and preheating at 400 degrees C. The obtained SrTiO3 film on the (0 1 0)-oriented RbLaNb2O7 seed layer showed highly (1 0 0)-oriented growth: the Lotgering factor F(1 0 0) was evaluated to be 0.983. From the cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy analysis, the crystal quality of the RbLaNb2O7 film was confirmed to be good as a seed layer for the fabrication of oriented multilayer perovskite thin films, whereas the stacking faults were inevitably emerged in the structure. The surface morphology observations revealed that the surface of the seed layer thin film consisted of very smooth regions and roughened grains. On the smooth grains, the epitaxial growth of SrTiO3 film seems to be significantly enhanced. To reduce the roughened grains would be the most important issue for further improvement of orientation quality of multilayer perovskite thin films. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.