Unit-Cell by Unit-Cell Homoepitaxial Growth Using Atomically Flat SrTiO3(001) Substrates and Pulsed Laser Deposition
FEI Yi-Yan1, WANG Xu1, LU Hui-Bin1, YANG Guo-Zhen1, ZHU Xiang-Dong1,2
1Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080
2Department of Physics, University of California at Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA
Unit-Cell by Unit-Cell Homoepitaxial Growth Using Atomically Flat SrTiO3(001) Substrates and Pulsed Laser Deposition
1Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080
2Department of Physics, University of California at Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA
Abstract： Using a combination of chemical etching and thermal annealing methods, we have obtained atomically flat TiO2-terminated SrTiO3(001) with large terraces. The average width of the terrace is only determined by miscut angles. When we continuously grow tens of SrTiO3 monolayers on such a surface under pulsed laser ablation deposition condition at 621°C, the growth proceeds in a layer-by-layer mode characterized by un-damped oscillations of the specular RHEED intensity. After the growth of 180 monolayers, the surface morphology is restored to the pre-growth condition with similarly large terraces after annealing in vacuum for only 30min, indicating efficient mass transfer on TiO2-terminated terraces.
2005, Vol. 22 
