Chemical vapor deposition and structural study of La0.8MnO3-delta thin films

We report here the synthesis of lacunar lanthanum manganites La0.8MnO3-delt a by a liquid source metal organic chemical vapor deposition technique whic h has been developed recently in our laboratory. The role of the substrate temperature on the growth rate, on the molar ratio La/Mn and on the crystal linity is studied for films deposited on MgO (001) single crystals. A struc tural study by means of X-ray diffraction (theta/2 theta scans, omega-scans , phi-scans) and scanning electron microscopy (channeling electron patterns ) has been achieved on lanthanum manganites films with the composition La-0 .8 MnO3-delta grown on three kinds of substrates: MgO (001), LaAlO3 (012) a nd SrTiO3 (001). Films on LaAlO3 and SrTiO3 show an epitaxial quality with a small mosaicity in the plane of the substrate. Due to a bigger lattice mi smatch with the substrate, films deposited on MgO present a worse crystalli ne quality with two types of epitaxially grown crystallites. (C) 1999 Elsev ier Science S.A. All rights reserved.