RuO2 thin films have been produced on silicon-based substrates by in situ pulsed laser deposition for the first time. The electrical properties, the surface characteristics, the crystalline structure, and the film-substrate interface of deposited samples have been investigated by 4-probe resistance versus temperature technique, scanning electron microscopy, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction, and transmission electron microscopy, respectively. The films show good electrical properties. The RuO2-substrate interface is very thin (≈3 nm), since it is not degraded by any annealing process. These two characteristics render our films suitable to be used as electrodes in PZT-based capacitors.
The dielectric constant and the reflectivity spectrum of polycrystalline RuO2 films, grown by pulsed laser deposition, are presented as deduced by optical reflection and electron energy-loss spectroscopy. The similarities of these spectra with those obtained on single crystals, suggest that the production of RuO2 by laser ablation is a very good tool in obtaining films with electronic and structural characteristics equivalent to those of the bulk material.
The transport of material from target to substrate has been monitored in the pulsed laser deposition of Pb(Ti0.48Zr0.52)O3 films on p-doped Si(100) using two in situ diagnostics, namely plume fluorescence spectroscopy and plume ion mass spectrometry. The as-grown PZT films are specular, with thicknesses which decrease from 350 to 250 nm on a radius 5 mm from the center and show a dielectric hysteresis with typical remanent polarizations and coercive fields of 0.2 μC/cm2 and 124 kV/cm, respectively. The analysis of the plume fluorescence emission and ionic yield indicates that oxidation of the ablated material occurs during transport from target to substrate and that, in order to grow ferroelectric thin films, the substrate should be located in the region of the plume where the relative concentrations of metal oxides and clusters increase.
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