Controlled strained layer epitaxial growth of EuTiO3 on buffered silicon

Abstract

In this work, we show the epitaxial growth of (111)-oriented EuTiO3 thin films on (001)-oriented silicon with an in situ grown yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) buffer layer by pulsed laser deposition. X-ray diffraction measurements revealed a homogeneously strained EuTiO3 thin film with a strain dependency on the laser fluence during the film growth. From magnetization vs temperature measurements, we confirmed that the strained EuTiO3 films have an antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic transition at 3.7 K, which disappeared for unstrained films. Furthermore, we used electron backscatter diffraction to analyze the columnar growth of EuTiO3 on YSZ, which showed four in-plane orientations.