Growth kinetics of epitaxial Y-stabilized ZrO₂films deposited on InP

Abstract

The nucleation and growth kinetics of Y-stabilized ZrO 2 (YSZ) films have been studied by atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction. The investigated films are cube-on-cube epitaxially deposited on annealed (100)InP by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) exhibiting a twodimensional growth habit in spite of the large system misfit (≈13% of tensile strain). Beyond the nucleation regime, the YSZ growth kinetics is analysed within the frame of the dynamic scaling theory. Such an analysis suggests the existence of a unique growth mechanism operating during a wide range of deposition times, i.e., 50-10 4 s. This mechanism corresponds to the diffusion ruled by the surface local curvature and limited by the irreversible aggregation to kinks. On the basis of the achieved results, models accounting for the surface diffusion enhancement induced by PLD are discussed.

Microstructures of CGO and YSZ Thin Films by Pulsed Laser Deposition

“…[8] The presence of clusters embedded in the film was reported for ceria deposited at 0.2 mbar and 100°C. [8] The stoichiometry of the target was reported to be transferred to the films deposited on a silicon substrate independent of the oxygen pressure [9,10] in the PLD chamber during deposition.…”

Preventing Kinetic Roughening in Physical Vapor-Phase-Deposited Films

“…1) between the ! evolution simulated for PLD kinetics and experimental data [11] for PLD-grown Y-stabilized ZrO 2 (YSZ) films on InP(100).…”

“…for pulsed fluxes disagrees with the existing models [14] that explained the low roughnesses obtained by PLD in terms of a ''milling effect'' of surface clusters and islands by energetic species in the ablation plume. In addition, these models [14] do not clarify the origin either of the low roughness obtained in oxide films grown by PLD [6,11] using moderate laser fluence 3-5 J=cm 2 and high enough oxygen pressures (10 ÿ3 -10 2 mbar) to thermalize the energetic species, which results in hX n i 1 [12].…”

“…The fact that the growth kinetics of PLD is driven by kinetically limited Ostwald ripening is a ground-breaking finding. The omission of this information in previous models [10,14] has restricted their capability to address the existing data [6,9,11].…”

“…Thickness dependence of the roughness for four distinctive PVD techniques: SP (᭡), MBE (4), FE (ᮀ), and PLD (); and their energetic counterparts eSP (crossed 4) and ePLD (crossed ᮀ). Asterisks denote the data reported[11] for PLD-grown YSZ films/InP(100). AFM-imaged morphology of the d 3:0 0:1-ML-thick YSZ film is shown [1-ML 0:26 nm].…”