Eur. Phys. J. B 29, 561-566 (2002)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2002-00340-5

SrRuO based heterostructures grown by pulsed laser deposition

INFM Coherentia - Dipartimento di Ingegneria Meccanica, Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”, Via del Politecnico 1, 00133 Roma, Italy

Corresponding author: ^a tebano@uniroma2.it

Received: 3 July 2002
Revised: 12 September 2002
Published online: 31 October 2002

Abstract

In this report we demonstrate that high quality epitaxial heterostructures, based on metallic SrRuO₃ and insulating SrTiO₃ individual blocks a few unit cells thick, can be grown in a purely 2D, layer-by-layer mode, using pulsed laser deposition with in situ reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) diagnostics. The thickness of each constituent block can be controlled at the level of a single unit cell. A detailed investigation carried out at the synchrotron facility, ESRF, by various X-ray techniques has demonstrated that each intensity oscillation of the RHEED specular spot corresponds strictly to the growth of a single perovskite unit cell, either SrRuO₃ or SrTiO₃. Furthermore, we show that, in these structures, the interfaces between the different constituent blocks are very sharp with a roughness of only one unit cell.