Evidence of intergrowth in SrBi2Nb2O9 (SBN) thin films grown by PLD on (1 0 0)SrTiO3 in relation with the composition

Structural comparative study by RBS and XPD of stoichiometric and Bi-deficient SrBi2Nb2O9 thin films epitaxially grown on (100)SrTiO3

“…h-2h X-ray diffraction patterns performed on type I (stoichiometric) and type II (Bi-deficient) samples evidenced in both cases the 0 0 l orientation [25]. The XRD pattern relative to stoichiometric films simply shows the 0 0 l diffraction peaks of the m = 2 SBN phase.…”

Structure of non-stoichiometric Sr–Bi–Nb–O thin films grown by PLD

“…Thin films of the Sr-Bi-Nb-O compound were deposited by PLD technique as has been previously reported [14]. In brief, a Xe-Cl excimer laser SOPRA 520 with wavelength 308 nm was used.…”

“…Taking into account the structural properties of BLPS compounds and the HRTEM results [14], a crystal structure of films has been modelled as an alternation of two type, ''A'' and ''B'', structural fragments along c axis: ''A'' was a half unit-cell of m ¼ 2 phase (SrBi 2 Nb 2 O 9 ) and ''B'' was a half unit-cell of m ¼ 3 phase (Sr 2 Bi 2 Nb 3 O 12 ). Coordinates of the atoms in ''A'' were chosen as those refined by Ismumandar et al for a bulk powder SBN specimen [17].…”

“…X-ray diffraction (XRD) is a standard technique being applied to evaluate the average structural state of a material. In this work, we report a quantitative analysis of the stacking faults in non-stoichiometric Sr-Bi-Nb-O films, using a stacking fault model that follows the HRTEM results [14] and explains our experimental XRD data. As a result, the information of structural and compositional states of the films is correlated.…”

“…As compared with other techniques utilized for thin-film deposition, pulsed-laser deposition has some advantage because of its ability to deposit films with controlled stoichiometry from a single target. By now SBN and SBT ferroelectric thin films were fabricated successfully using pulsed laser deposition (PLD) [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. Previous study [13,14] showed a significant bismuth loss in the case when films were grown from stoichiometric targets because of the bismuth oxide volatility.…”