Abstract
We report on the study of the critical thickness and the strain relaxation in epitaxial SrTiO3 film grown on (La0.3Sr 0.7)(Al0.65Ta0.35)O3 (001) (LSAT) substrate using the hybrid molecular beam epitaxy approach. No change in the film's lattice parameter (both the in-plane and the out-of-plane) was observed up to a film thickness of 180 nm, which is in sharp contrast to the theoretical critical thickness of ∼12 nm calculated using the equilibrium theory of strain relaxation. For film thicknesses greater than 180 nm, the out-of-plane lattice parameter was found to decrease hyperbolically in an excellent agreement with the relaxation via forming misfit dislocations. Possible mechanisms are discussed by which the elastic strain energy can be accommodated prior to forming misfit dislocations leading to such anomalously large critical thickness.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 212904 |
| Journal | Applied Physics Letters |
| Volume | 103 |
| Issue number | 21 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 18 2013 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors thank Professor Chris Leighton, Professor Andre Mkhoyan, and Professor Chris Palmstrom for helpful discussion. This work was supported partially by the National Science Foundation through the University of Minnesota MRSEC under Award No. DMR-0819885. We also acknowledge use of facilities at the UMN characterization facility and the nanofabrication center.