1 research outputs found
Epitaxial growth and structural characterization of Pb(Fe1/2Nb1/2)O3 thin films
We have grown lead iron niobate thin films with composition Pb(Fe1/2Nb1/2)O3
(PFN) on (0 0 1) SrTiO3 substrates by pulsed laser deposition. The influence of
the deposition conditions on the phase purity was studied. Due to similar
thermodynamic stability spaces, a pyrochlore phase often coexists with the PFN
perovskite phase. By optimizing the kinetic parameters, we succeeded in
identifying a deposition window which resulted in epitaxial perovskite-phase
PFN thin films with no identifiable trace of impurity phases appearing in the
X-ray diffractograms. PFN films having thicknesses between 20 and 200 nm were
smooth and epitaxially oriented with the substrate and as demonstrated by RHEED
streaks which were aligned with the substrate axes. X-ray diffraction showed
that the films were completely c-axis oriented and of excellent crystalline
quality with low mosaicity (X-ray rocking curve FWHM<0.09). The surface
roughness of thin films was also investigated by atomic force microscopy. The
root-mean-square roughness varies between 0.9 nm for 50-nm-thick films to 16 nm
for 100-nm-thick films. We also observe a correlation between grain size,
surface roughness and film thickness.Comment: 13 Pages, 6 figures. To be published in J. Mag. Mag Mater.
proceedings of EMRS200