Fabrication of Pseudocubic SrRuO3 (100) Epitaxial Thin Films on Si by Pulsed Laser Deposition

Pseudocubic SrRuO3 (100) epitaxial thin films were fabricated on Si (100) with a SrO buffer layer of 6 nm thickness by PLD. RHEED revealed that the epitaxial growth of SrO occurred on naturally oxidized Si substrates, followed by the epitaxial growth of SrRuO3. XRD revealed high crystallinity with a FWHM of 1.9 degrees in the SrRuO3 (200) rocking curve. XRD study of the in-plane orientation clarified a cube-on-cube epitaxy in which SrRuO3 < 010 > was rotated by 45 degrees with respect to Si < 010 > . Deoxidization of SiO2 on Si by Sr is thought be important in realizing the epitaxial growth of SrO. 13 refs.