Epitaxial growth and crystallographic analyses of (Pb, La)TiO3 thin films by a multi-ion-beam reactive cosputtering technique

Epitaxial thin films of lead titanate(PbTiO3) and lanthanium-modified lead titanate [(Pb, La)TiO3] have been successfully grown on (0001) sapphire substrates for the first time by the recently developed multi-ion-beam reactive cosputtering (MIBRECS) technique. The deposition processes and the thin-film analyses studied by x-ray diffraction (XRD), electron probe x-ray microanalyzer (EPMA), and reflection high-energy electron diffraction (RHEED) are reported. The experiments show that the multi-ion-beam reactive cosputtering process is very suitable for deposition of multicomponent oxide thin films with high reproducibility.