Uniform sputter deposition of high-quality epitaxial complex oxide thin films

Abstract

Uniform deposition of high-quality epitaxial complex oxide thin films over a large area is desirable not only for the large scale fabrication of oxide electronics but also for preparing multiple samples with the same growth conditions for various characterization techniques. However, it is particularly challenging to grow uniform thin films of multicomponent oxide systems containing volatile species such as Pb and Bi. By combining a misaligned parallel dual planar magnetron sputtering technique with substrate rotation, the authors have grown uniform epitaxial thin films piezoelectric 0.67Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.33PbTiO3 and multiferroic monodomain BiFeO3 with high-deposition rates over a 2 in. diameter area. These films have excellent uniformity of thickness, stoichiometric compositions, and electrical properties. This technique can be scaled to larger deposition areas by using larger sputtering targets and widely applied to various multicomponent complex oxide thin film heterostructures.