Pulsed laser deposition-induced reduction of SrTiO3 crystals

✍ Scribed by Matthew L. Scullin; Jayakanth Ravichandran; Choongho Yu; Mark Huijben; Jan Seidel; Arun Majumdar; R. Ramesh

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 413 KB
• Volume: 58
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1359-6454
• DOI: 10.1016/j.actamat.2009.09.024

✦ Synopsis

We report a generic method for fast and efficient reduction of strontium titanate (SrTiO 3 , STO) single crystals by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) of thin-films. The reduction was largely independent of the thin-film material deposited on the crystals. It is shown that thermodynamic conditions (450 °C, 10 À7 torr, 10-60 min), which normally reduce STO (0 0 1) substrates to roughly 5 nm into a crystal substrate, can reduce the same crystals throughout their 500 lm thickness when coupled with the PLD. In situ characterization of the STO substrate resistance during thin-film growth is presented. This process opens up the possibility of employing STO substrates as a back-gate in functional oxide devices.