D. Huttner et al., HIGH-RESOLUTION RUTHERFORD BACKSCATTERING STUDY OF ULTRATHIN YBACUO FILM GROWTH ON SRTIO3 AND MGO, Applied physics letters, 65(22), 1994, pp. 2863-2865
Medium energy ion scattering in combination with an electrostatic high
-resolution detector system was applied to study the initial growth of
YBaCuO thin films on (100) SrTiO3 and MgO substrates. Ultrathin films
with thicknesses in the range of 0.4 to 3.6 nm were deposited by inve
rted cylindrical magnetron sputtering. From the absolute determination
of coverage as a function of depth the following growth features were
deduced: on both substrates the films grow in blocks of one unit cell
and full. coverage with a homogeneous film is achieved at 3.6-nm thic
kness. In the initial stage of nucleation, on SrTiO3 the growth of an
additional block layer is initiated only after completion of the prece
ding layer, while island growth is observed on MgO with different cove
rage values on three layer levels appearing simultaneously. (C) 1994 A
merican Institute of Physics.