Combinatorial Pulsed Laser Deposition of Fe, Cr, Mn, and Ni-Substituted SrTiO3 Films on Si Substrates

Combinatorial pulsed laser depositon(CPLD) using two targets was used to produce a range of transition metal-substituted peroyskite structured. Sr(T1-xMx)O3-delta, films on buffered silicon substrates, Where M = Fe, Ni, and Mn and x = 0.05-0.5. CPLD produced samples whose composition vs distance. fitted a linear combination, of the compositions of the two targets. Sr(Ti1-xFex)O3-delta films produced from a pair of perovskite targets (SrTiO3 and SrFeO3 or SrTiO3 and SrTiO0.575Fe0.425O3) had properties similar to those of films produced from single targets, showing a single phase microstructure, a saturation magnetization of 0.5 mu/Fe-B, and a strong out-of-plane magnetoelastic anisotropy at room temperature: Films produced from an SrTiO3 and a metal oxide target consisted of majority perovskite phases with additional metal oxide (or metal in the case of Ni) phases. Films made from SrTiO3 and Fe2O3 targets retained the high magnetic anisotropy of Sr(Ti1-xFex)O3-delta, but had a much higher saturation magnetization than single-target films, reaching for example an out-of-plane coercivity of >2 kOe and a saturation magnetization of 125 emu/cm(3) at 24%Fe. This was attributed to the presence of maghemite or magnetite exchange-coupled to the Sr(Ti1-xFex)O3-delta. Films of Sr(Ti1-xCrx)O3-6 and Sr(Ti1-xMnx)O3-delta showed no room temperature ferromagnetism, but Sr(Ti1-xNix)O3-delta did show a high anisotropy and magnetization attributed mainly to the perovskite phase. Combinatorial synthesis is shown to be perovskite films as well as multiphase films which have potential for a wide range of electronic, magnetic, optical, and catalytic applications.