| Epitaxial thin films and heterostructures of perovskite materials have great potential for novel device applications because of their enormous range of electrical, magnetic and optical properties. This thesis addresses some of the critical issues in the growth of epitaxial perovskite thin films for device applications.;The primary deposition technique used in this work is 90° off-axis sputtering. We have demonstrated the feasibility of using this technique for large area uniform deposition of perovskite thin films, which is required to obtain uniform and homogenous device properties over the entire wafer. This work has also helped develop a better understanding of some of the critical issues in the sputtering process such as, self-bias voltage, angular distribution of species, target erosion, spatial distribution of flux and time dependence of deposition rate.;We have controlled the nanoscale growth mechanisms and domains structures of Ca1--xSrxRuO3 and YBa2Cu 3O7 thin films and heterostructures using substrate miscut and lattice mismatch. Two-dimensional nucleation of SrRuO3 films on exact (001) SrTiO3 substrates leads to a two domain in-plane texture. In contrast, step flow growth on miscut SrTiO3 substrates leads to single domain texture. The different growth mechanisms and domain structures lead to a difference in the anisotropic magnetotransport properties of these films. Furthermore, we have found a lattice mismatch induced strain stabilized metal-insulator transition in CaRuO3 thin films. Using a similar approach we have grown also YBa2CU3O 7 based high-Tc multilayered heterostructures with periodic and well-controlled nanoscale steps at the interface. These uniform steps can be used as proximity effect coupling sites at the interface in SNS Josephson junctions.;We have also studied the influence of epitaxial strain on the properties of perovskite films. The colossal magneto-resistive La1--xCa xMnO3 manganite films show a high degree of strain sensitivity. We have studied the effect of 3-D strain states and strain relaxation processes on the crystallographic domain structures, electrical transport and magnetic anisotropy in these films.;This work will help develop a better understanding of the processing-structure-property correlation in perovskite thin films. Furthermore, it is hoped that this work will foster research and development in the field of epitaxial perovskite thin films and heterostructures. |
