TY - JOUR
T1 - Substrate oxygen sponge effect
T2 - A parameter for epitaxial manganite thin film growth
AU - Kang, Kyeong Tae
AU - Zhang, Bruce
AU - Sharma, Yogesh
AU - Paudel, Binod
AU - Wang, Haiyan
AU - Dowden, Paul
AU - Chen, Aiping
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Author(s).
PY - 2020/10/12
Y1 - 2020/10/12
N2 - The emergent phenomena in complex oxide thin films are strongly tied to the oxygen content, which is often engineered by the oxygen partial pressure during growth. However, such oxygen control by the growth pressure is challenging to synthesize for some oxide films, which requires a subtle control of the oxygen content. A parameter of controlling the oxygen content independent of the growth pressure is desired. Here, we propose a method of controlling the oxygen content of films by engineering the substrate before the growth. The oxide substrate serves as an oxygen sponge, which provides a tunable oxygen environment ranging from oxygen-rich to oxygen-poor for the film growth, depending on the pre-substrate annealing (PSA) conditions. Using manganite as a model system, we demonstrate that this simple PSA method leads to remarkable changes in the structure and physical properties of the as-grown films. This substrate oxygen sponge effect, driven by the large oxygen concentration gradient at high temperatures, can be applied to explore not only emergent interfacial phenomena but also the growth of a variety of functional oxide thin films and nanocomposites.
AB - The emergent phenomena in complex oxide thin films are strongly tied to the oxygen content, which is often engineered by the oxygen partial pressure during growth. However, such oxygen control by the growth pressure is challenging to synthesize for some oxide films, which requires a subtle control of the oxygen content. A parameter of controlling the oxygen content independent of the growth pressure is desired. Here, we propose a method of controlling the oxygen content of films by engineering the substrate before the growth. The oxide substrate serves as an oxygen sponge, which provides a tunable oxygen environment ranging from oxygen-rich to oxygen-poor for the film growth, depending on the pre-substrate annealing (PSA) conditions. Using manganite as a model system, we demonstrate that this simple PSA method leads to remarkable changes in the structure and physical properties of the as-grown films. This substrate oxygen sponge effect, driven by the large oxygen concentration gradient at high temperatures, can be applied to explore not only emergent interfacial phenomena but also the growth of a variety of functional oxide thin films and nanocomposites.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85092644606&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1063/5.0020426
DO - 10.1063/5.0020426
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85092644606
SN - 0003-6951
VL - 117
JO - Applied Physics Letters
JF - Applied Physics Letters
IS - 15
M1 - 151601
ER -