Pulsed laser deposition of epitaxial titanium nitride on MgO(001) monitored by RHEED oscillation

Titanium nitride was grown epitaxially on MgO(001) by a pulsed laser deposi tion (PLD) method, and the oscillations of reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) for this system were observed for the first time. The R HEED patterns and atomic force microscope (AFM) analysis revealed the two-d imensional growth of highly flat TiN films. The high-resolution reciprocal space mapping of X-ray diffraction of the TiN film showed that the lattice dimensions of the TST shrunk along the plane parallel to the surface of the MgO(001) substrate by 0.6% with no structural relaxation and no mosaic dis order, demonstrating the deposition of the high-quality epitaxial film. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.