Low temperature growth of NiO epitaxial films on c-sapphire substrate by pulsed laser deposition technique

NiO films are grown on c-sapphire substrates using pulsed laser deposition technique at different growth temperatures. Both in-plane and out of plane X-ray diffraction studies reveal high epitaxial quality of the film on sapphire. The surface morphology of the films is studied by atomic force microscopy, which shows smooth and continuous morphology with root mean square (RMS) roughness less than 2 nm. Resistivity of the film is observed to depend strongly on the growth temperature. This has been attributed to the growth temperature dependent variation of Ni vacancy concentration in the film.