We present results on growth of large area epitaxial ReS2 thin film both on c plane sapphire substrate and MoS2 template by pulsed laser deposition (PLD). Films tend to grow with (0001) ReS2 perpendicular to (0001) Al2O3 and (0001) ReS2 perpendicular to (0001) MoS2 parallel to (0001) Al2O3 at deposition temperature below 300 deg C. Films are polycrystalline grown at temperature above 300 deg C. The smoothness and quality of the films are significantly improved when grown on MoS2 template compared to sapphire substrate. The results show that PLD is suitable to grow ReS2 epitaxial thin film over large area for practical device application.
Epitaxial titanium diboride thin films have been deposited on sapphire substrates by Pulsed Laser Ablation technique. Structural properties of the films have been studied during the growth by Reflection High Energy Electron Diffraction (RHEED) and ex-situ by means of X-ray diffraction techniques; both kinds of measurements indicate a good crystallographic orientation of the TiB2 film both in plane and along the c axis. A flat surface has been observed by Atomic Force Microscopy imaging. Electrical resistivity at room temperature resulted to be five times higher than the value reported for single crystals. The films resulted to be also very stable at high temperature, which is very promising for using this material as a buffer layer in the growth of magnesium diboride thin films.
Pulsed laser deposition, a non-equilibrium thin-film growth technique, was used to stabilize metastable tetragonal iron sulfide (FeS), the bulk state of which is known as a superconductor with a critical temperature of 4 K. Comprehensive experiments revealed four important factors to stabilize tetragonal FeS epitaxial thin films: (i) an optimum growth temperature of 300 {deg}C followed by thermal quenching, (ii) an optimum growth rate of ~7 nm/min, (iii) use of a high-purity bulk target, and (iv) use of a single-crystal substrate with small in-plane lattice mismatch (CaF2). Electrical resistivity measurements indicated that none of all the films exhibited superconductivity. Although an electric double-layer transistor structure was fabricated using the tetragonal FeS epitaxial film as a channel layer to achieve high-density carrier doping, no phase transition was observed. Possible reasons for the lack of superconductivity include lattice strain, off-stoichiometry of the film, electrochemical etching by the ionic liquid under gate bias, and surface degradation during device fabrication.
Cu2Ta4O12 (CTaO) thin films were successfully deposited on Si(100) substrates by pulsed-laser deposition technique. The crystalline structure and the surface morphology of the CTaO thin films were strongly affected by substrate temperature, oxygen pressure and target - substrate distance. In general during deposition of CTaO the formation of a Ta2O5 phase appeared, on which CTaO grew with different orientations. We report on the experimental set-up, details for film deposition and the film properties determined by SEM, EDX and XRD.
Pulsed-laser deposition has been used to grow epitaxial thin films of the giant-dielectric-constant material CaCu_3Ti_4O_{12} on LaAlO_3 and SrTiO_3 substrates with or without various conducting buffer layers. The latter include YBa_2Cu_3O_7, La_{1.85}Sr_{0.15}CuO_{4+delta} and LaNiO_3. Above 100K - 150K the thin films have a temperature independent dielectric constant as do single crystals. The value of the dielectric constant is of the order of 1500 over a wide temperature region, potentially making it a good candidate for many applications. The frequency dependence of its dielectric properties below 100K - 150K indicates an activated relaxation process.
High quality Van der Waals chalcogenides are important for phase change data storage, thermoelectrics, and spintronics. Using a combination of statistical design of experiments and density functional theory, we clarify how the out-of-equilibrium van der Waals epitaxial deposition methods can improve the crystal quality of Sb2Te3 films. We compare films grown by radio frequency sputtering and pulsed laser deposition (PLD). The growth factors that influence the crystal quality for each method are different. For PLD grown films a thin amorphous Sb2Te3 seed layer most significantly influences the crystal quality. In contrast, the crystalline quality of films grown by sputtering is rather sensitive to the deposition temperature and less affected by the presence of a seed layer. This difference is somewhat surprising as both methods are out-of-thermal-equilibrium plasma-based methods. Non-adiabatic quantum molecular dynamics simulations show that this difference originates from the density of excited atoms in the plasma. The PLD plasma is more intense and with higher energy than that used in sputtering, and this increases the electronic temperature of the deposited atoms, which concomitantly increases the adatom diffusion lengths in PLD. In contrast, the adatom diffusivity is dominated by the thermal temperature for sputter grown films. These results explain the wide range of Sb2Te3 and superlattice crystal qualities observed in the literature. These results indicate that, contrary to popular belief, plasma-based deposition methods are suitable for growing high quality crystalline chalcogenides.