Independence of surface morphology and reconstruction during the thermal preparation of perovskite oxide surfaces

Maren Jäger; Ali Teker; Jochen Mannhart; Wolfgang Braun

doi:10.1063/1.5023318

paper

Independence of surface morphology and reconstruction during the thermal preparation of perovskite oxide surfaces

arXiv:1802.08423 · doi:10.1063/1.5023318

Abstract

Using a CO $_{2}$ laser to directly heat the crystals from the back side, SrTiO $_{3}$ substrates may be thermally prepared in situ for epitaxy without the need for ex-situ etching and annealing. We find that the formation of large terraces with straight steps at 900-1100 °C is independent from the formation of the ideal surface reconstruction for epitaxy, which requires temperatures in excess of 1200 °C to complete. The process may be universal, at least for perovskite oxide surfaces, as it also works, at different temperatures, for LaAlO $_{3}$ and NdGaO $_{3}$ , two other widely used oxide substrate materials.

Submitted to Applied Physics Letters