Control of Lateral Composition Distribution in Graded Films of Soluble Solid Systems A_1-xB_x by Partitioned Dual-Beam Pulsed Laser Deposition

• Main Authors: Joe Sakai, José Manuel Caicedo Roque, Pablo Vales-Castro, Jessica Padilla-Pantoja, Guillaume Sauthier, Gustau Catalan, José Santiso
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-06-01
• Series: Coatings
• Subjects: pulsed laser deposition; compositionally-graded film; morphotropic phase boundary; Monte Carlo method; piezoelectric material; perovskite type manganite
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-6412/10/6/540

Lateral compositionally-graded thin films are powerful media for the observation of phase boundaries as well as for high-throughput materials exploration. We herein propose a method to prepare epitaxial lateral compositionally-graded films using a dual-beam pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method with two targets separated by a partition. Tuning the ambient pressure and the partition—substrate gap makes it possible to control of the gradient length of the deposits at the small sizes (≤ 10 mm) suitable for commercial oxide single crystal substrates. A simple Monte Carlo simulation qualitatively reproduced the characteristic features of the lateral thickness distribution. To demonstrate this method, we prepared (1<i>–x</i>)PbTiO₃—<i>x</i>PbZrO₃ and (1<i>–x</i>)LaMnO₃—<i>x</i>La_0.6Sr_0.4MnO₃ films with lateral composition gradient widths of 10 and 1 mm, respectively, with the partitioned dual PLD.