Disentangling Epitaxial Growth Mechanisms of Solution Derived Functional Oxide Thin Films

Abstract

We have investigated the mechanisms of epitaxial development and functional properties of oxide thin films (Ce 0.9 Zr 0.1 O 2-y , LaNiO 3 and Ba 0.8 Sr 0.2 TiO 3) grown on single crystal substrates (Y 2 O 3 :ZrO 2 , LaAlO 3 and SrTiO 3) by the chemical solution deposition approach. Rapid thermal annealing furnaces are very powerful tools in this study providing valuable information of the early stages of nucleation, the kinetics of epitaxial film growth and the coarsening of nanocrystalline phases. Advanced transmission electron microscopies, x-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy are employed to investigate the film microstructure and morphology, microstrain relaxation and epitaxial crystallization. We demonstrate that the isothermal evolution towards epitaxial film growth follows a self-limited process driven by atomic diffusion, and surface and interface energy minimization. All investigated oxides

Surface engineering of the flexible metallic substrate by SDP‐Gd‐Zr‐O layer for IBAD‐MgO templates

“…The RMS values increased from 0.4 to 1.0 nm, when solution concentration was increased from 0.1 to 0.8 M. This eventually results in deterioration of the IBAD‐MgO texture, which is indicated by the corresponding RHEED patterns where the intensity of MgO (002) decreased from 24 to 0. The grain growth with a film thickness in polycrystalline films has been previously reported in either physical vapor deposition or chemical solution deposition, which is in good agreement with our observations. In case of chemical solution deposition, the rougher topography is associated with either the relax structure at the surface layer or the gas release during decomposition .…”

Unveiling the Nucleation and Coarsening Mechanisms of Solution-Derived Self-Assembled Epitaxial Ce0.9Gd0.1O2–y Nanostructures

“…Chemical solution deposition (CSD) has appeared among the different processing techniques as an adaptable, low-cost and very powerful ex-situ approach for the bottom-up fabrication of functional oxide architectures with good stoichiometric control. For instance, it has been employed to successfully fabricate a broad range of oxides such as Pb(Zr,Ti)O3, (Ba,Sr)TiO3, LaNiO3, Ce1-xGdxO2-y (CGO), (La,Sr)MnO3, BiFeO3 and YBa2Cu3O7-x (YBCO) either as polycrystalline and epitaxial films, or in the form of interfacial nanostructures 10,35,38,[48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55] . Some attempts have been made to evaluate nucleation and coarsening in closed systems.…”

Volume Resistive Switching in metallic perovskite oxides driven by the Metal-Insulator Transition

“…Initially, research studies were conducted in powdered polycrystalline samples. Single crystals of nickelates with rare earths ranging from La to Sm have so far only been achieved via thin film growth by either physical [71,[97][98][99][100] or chemical [101,102] methods. Nickelates are therefore a relatively young research field and it evolves rapidly.…”