Direct Nanoscale Analysis of Temperature-Resolved Growth Behaviors of Ultrathin Perovskites on SrTiO3

Abstract

Revealing growth mechanism of a thin film and properties of its film substrate interface necessarily require microscopic investigations on the initial growth stages in temperature-and thickness-resolved manners. Here we applied in situ scanning tunneling microscopy and atomic force microscopy to investigate the growth dynamics in homo-(SrTiO3) and hetero-(SrRuO3) epitaxies on SrTiO3(001). A comparison of temperature dependent surface structures of SrRuO3 and SrTiO3 films suggests that the peculiar growth mode switching from a "layer-by-layer" to "step-flow" type in a SrRuO3 films arises from a reduction of surface migration barrier, caused by the change in the chemical configuration of the interface between the topmost and underlying layers. Island densities in perovskite epitaxies exhibited a clear linear inverse-temperature dependence. A prototypical study on island nucleation stage of SrTiO3 homoepitaxy revealed that classical diffusion model is valid for the perovskite growths. © 2016 American Chemical Society