PLD Growth of Epitaxially-stabilized 5d Perovskite SrIrO3 Thin Films

Abstract

We have investigated the details of the growth behavior of epitaxially-stabilized 5d perovskite SrIrO3 thin films deposited by using a pulsed laser deposition method. During the deposition,a marked decrease in plume size was observed, which was accompanied by the formation of Irrich conical structures on the surface of the polycrystalline SrIrO3 target. High-resolution X-ray diffraction studies revealed that films thicker than certain thickness exhibited a mixed character of a high-quality phase and a relatively poor-quality phase while thinner films showed a high crystalline quality. These observations offer valuable information on the correlation between the plume status and the crystalline quality of iridate thin films.