Characterization of the biaxial textures of MgO thin films grown by E-beam evaporation

Abstract

The biaxial textures of MgO thin films with thicknesses 4500–5500 Å deposited by electron beam evaporation on glass substrates have been characterized. The surface normal to the amorphous soda-lime glass substrate was placed parallel to the MgO vapor flux, i.e., at zero degree with respect to the MgO vapor source. The MgO thin films showed biaxial texture regardless of the deposition parameters. XRD and SEM have been used to characterize the crystal structure and thin film surface morphology. In this study we devised a novel method for the characterization of the biaxial texture of MgO thin films with thicknesses ≤5000 Å, for which the X-ray pole figure method cannot be used due to the low scattering intensity from the MgO film containing only low atomic X-ray scattering ions. We report the biaxial texture development in MgO thin films grown by E-beam evaporation on the amorphous glass substrate inclined at zero degree with respect to the MgO vapor source.