Volatile surfactant-assisted MOCVD: Application to LaAlO3 thin-film growth

A new approach to the CVD of oxides with kinetically hindered diffusion, ca lled volatile surfactant-assisted (VSA) metal-organic chemical vapor deposi tion (MOCVD), consisting of film deposition in the presence of a volatile l ow melting point oxide (Bi2O3) has been developed. The process was applied to the deposition of LaAlO3 films, and a model of the process was proposed. Epitaxial and textured LaAlO3 films on various substrates were obtained, b oth by thermal and VSA MOCVD. A marked improvement in crystalline quality a nd surface morphology was found for the films deposited by VSA MOCVD. LaAlO 3 films obtained in the presence of Bi2O3 did not contain Bi. A significant increase (up to five times) of the deposition rate was observed for LaAlO3 films deposited by VSA MOCVD compared with that for the films grown by the rmal MOCVD.