Heteroepitaxial growth of high K dielectric thin films by pulsed laser deposition

High K dielectric [Pb(Mg-1/3 Nb-2/3)O-3](1-x) -[PbTiO3](x) (PMN1-x -PTx) thin films and conducting La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 (LSMO) oxide electrodes were deposited on LaAlO3 (LAO) (100) single crystal substrates by pulsed laser deposition. A novel "split-target" technique was used to fabricate films with x = 0.00, 0.10, 0.35, 0.53 and 1.00. Conditions for depositing high quality films were studied. The structural characteristics of the PMN1-x-PTx /LSMO/LAO heterostructures were examined by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. A cube-on-cube epitaxy was obtained for films grown at 650degreesC and under an oxygen ambient pressure of 200 mTorr. Electrical measurement was performed with 0.2 mm diameter patterned Au top electrodes. The dielectric constant and dielectric loss of the PMN1-x-PTx films were studied as functions of frequency and temperature for x = 0.10 and 0.35. All films grown at 650degreesC showed small leakage current density of below 10 -7 Acm -2 at 1 V.