Surface Termination Conversion during SrTiO3 Thin Film Growth Revealed by X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy
10.1038/srep11829
Crossref journal-article
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Scientific Reports (297)
Abstract

AbstractEmerging electrical and magnetic properties of oxide interfaces are often dominated by the termination and stoichiometry of substrates and thin films, which depend critically on the growth conditions. Currently, these quantities have to be measured separately with different sophisticated techniques. This report will demonstrate that the analysis of angle dependent X-ray photoelectron intensity ratios provides a unique tool to determine both termination and stoichiometry simultaneously in a straightforward experiment. Fitting the experimental angle dependence with a simple analytical model directly yields both values. The model is calibrated through the determination of the termination of SrTiO3 single crystals after systematic pulsed laser deposition of sub-monolayer thin films of SrO. We then use the model to demonstrate that during homoepitaxial SrTiO3 growth, excess Sr cations are consumed in a self-organized surface termination conversion before cation defects are incorporated into the film. We show that this termination conversion results in insulating properties of interfaces between polar perovskites and SrTiO3 thin films. These insights about oxide thin film growth can be utilized for interface engineering of oxide heterostructures. In particular, they suggest a recipe for obtaining two-dimensional electron gases at thin film interfaces: SrTiO3 should be deposited slightly Ti-rich to conserve the TiO2-termination.

Bibliography

Baeumer, C., Xu, C., Gunkel, F., Raab, N., Heinen, R. A., Koehl, A., & Dittmann, R. (2015). Surface Termination Conversion during SrTiO3 Thin Film Growth Revealed by X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy. Scientific Reports, 5(1).

Authors 7
  1. Christoph Baeumer (first)
  2. Chencheng Xu (additional)
  3. Felix Gunkel (additional)
  4. Nicolas Raab (additional)
  5. Ronja Anika Heinen (additional)
  6. Annemarie Koehl (additional)
  7. Regina Dittmann (additional)
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Dates
Type When
Created 10 years, 1 month ago (July 20, 2015, 5:03 a.m.)
Deposited 2 years, 7 months ago (Jan. 5, 2023, 9:06 a.m.)
Indexed 2 weeks, 2 days ago (Aug. 12, 2025, 6:14 p.m.)
Issued 10 years, 1 month ago (July 20, 2015)
Published 10 years, 1 month ago (July 20, 2015)
Published Online 10 years, 1 month ago (July 20, 2015)
Funders 0

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@article{Baeumer_2015, title={Surface Termination Conversion during SrTiO3 Thin Film Growth Revealed by X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy}, volume={5}, ISSN={2045-2322}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep11829}, DOI={10.1038/srep11829}, number={1}, journal={Scientific Reports}, publisher={Springer Science and Business Media LLC}, author={Baeumer, Christoph and Xu, Chencheng and Gunkel, Felix and Raab, Nicolas and Heinen, Ronja Anika and Koehl, Annemarie and Dittmann, Regina}, year={2015}, month=jul }