Pulsed laser deposition and characterization of perovskite thin films on various substrates

Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) is a unique tool to grow high quality thin fi lms of complex composition. In recent years it was demonstrated by several groups that PLD is capable of depositing material ol er application relevan t substrate sizes with good uniformity. In this contribution YBCO thin film s and buffer layers were deposited by a special PLD setup on substrates as large as 7 cm x 20 cm. For this purpose the UV laser light is focussed to a n 8 cm Line on cylindrical targets while the substrate is scanned perpendic ular to the line focus. Different kinds of substrates (SrTiO3, MgO, LaAlO3 and Sapphire) were coated with YBCO. Two important points of the presented PLD-setup will be discussed in detail: the way of substrate heating and the variation of the angle between the incident laser beam and the target surf ace ('wobbling'). The structural and electrical properties of the deposited YBCO thin films were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and inductive measurements of the critical current density j(c). Furthermore, PLD was us ed to deposit ferroelectric (Pb,La)(Zr,Ti)O-3 (PLZT) thin films on high-gra de steel Hastelloy. This polycrystalline alloy is suitable as substrate and electrode material as well. The deposited films were characterized with re spect to their structural, topological and ferroelectric properties. (C) 20 00 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.