High-Rate Growth of High-Crystallinity LiCoO₂ Epitaxial Thin Films by Pulsed Laser Deposition

Pulsed laser deposition is widely used to form complex oxide thin films due to the relatively small deviation in composition between the target and the film. The deviation, although small, is not completely prevented: it highly depends on the ablation conditions. Furthermore, gas pressure affects it in the case of lithium compounds, because lithium is even lighter than oxygen. In other words, the difference in composition between the target and the film is controllable by adjusting these parameters. In this study, we succeeded in the high-rate epitaxial growth of stoichiometric LiCoO 2 films from a lithium-enriched target through composition control.