Epitaxial Growth of Cerium Oxide Buffer Layers on MgO, YSZ and Sapphire Substrates

Abstract

We studied the epitaxial growth of CeO2 thin films deposited onto MgO(100), YSZ(100) and Al2O3(1102 ) (r-plane sapphire) substrates by reactive dc magnetron sputtering of a Ce metal target in an Ar/O2 plasma. The crystalline quality and biaxial alignment of the films was determined using x-ray diffraction techniques (θ-2θ, ω-scans, pole figures, ø-scans). The CeO2/MgO(100) and CeO2/Al2O3(1102) epitaxy was evident at 600°C and developed to nearly perfect biaxial alignment at 850°C with Δø = 5° and 9° respectively. The CeO2/YSZ (100) epitaxy occurred below 300°C while deposition at ≥ 650°C led to single-crystal quality CeO2 films with Δø = 0.2°.