Growth of epitaxial CaRuO3 films

In this work we report on the growth of CaRuO3 films by the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique. The films were deposited from stoichiometric targets which were produced by standard solid state reaction. Powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) demonstrated the impurity free orthorhombic Pbnm structure of the targets. The films were grown on (001) oriented (LaAlO3)0.3(SrAl0.5Ta0.5O3)0.7 and (110) NdGaO3 single crystal substrates. The growth mode and film thickness were studied by in-situ reflection high energy electron diffraction. The composition of the films was checked by electron dispersive x-ray analysis and Rutherford backscattering spectrometry. The substrate temperature, Ts, the oxygen partial pressure, P(O2), and the target-substrate distance, d, were optimized with respect to the crystallinity of the films. The mosaic spread of the films and the of-plane lattice constant were determined from rocking curves and θ/2θ scans on 00l reflections, respectively.