In situ real-time studies of complex oxide thin film growth

The structure properties relationships of technologically interesting complex oxide thin films necessitates a deep understanding of these films' growth mechanisms. To accomplish this, a sputter deposition system with real time analysis capabilities was built in our laboratory. The combination of spectroscopic ellipsometry and time of flight ion and recoil spectrometry was used to study the growth and subsequent thermal processing of complex oxide thin films in real time. These complimentary techniques permit the observation of the evolution of critical film properties during the initial moments of film growth.; The oxygen incorporation as well as surface termination of YBa₂ Cu₃O_7−x was studied with this complimentary set of techniques. The differing oxygen sites in the lattice were observed to differ in their mechanism for oxygen incorporation. The film surface was found to be Ba terminated as opposed to Cu terminated as previously thought.; Interface formation was observed in real time for Ba_0.5Sr _0.5TiO₃ films deposited on Si and SiO₂ substrates. The rate and extent of interface formation was found to be dependent upon the reactivity of the substrate surface, with SiO₂ substrates providing a less, albeit still reactive surface for deposition. The effect of the interface layer on the electrical properties of Si | BST | Ir capacitors are shown to be detrimental, and the pitfalls of attempting to extract a dielectric constant from a multiple film stack capacitance measurement is addressed.