Enhanced electron mobility in epitaxial (Ba, La)SnO3 films on BaSnO3(001) substrates

We report the growth of Ba1-xLaxSnO3 (x = 0.00, 0.005, 0.01, 0.02, and 0.04) thin films on the insulating BaSnO3(001) substrate by pulsed laser deposition. The insulating BaSnO3 substrates were grown by the Cu2O-CuO flux, in which the molar fraction of KClO4 was systematically increased to reduce electron carriers and thus induce a doping induced metal-insulator transition, exhibiting a resistivity increase from similar to 10(-3) to similar to 10(12) Omega cm at room temperature. We find that all the Ba1-xLaxSnO3 films are epitaxial, showing good in-plane lattice matching with the substrate as confirmed by X-ray reciprocal space mappings and transmission electron microscopy studies. The Ba1-xLaxSnO3 (x = 0.005-0.04) films showed degenerate semiconducting behavior, and the electron mobility at room temperature reached 100 and 85 cm(2) V-1 s(-1) at doping levels 1.3 x 10(20) and 6.8 x 10(19) cm(-3), respectively. This work demonstrates that thin perovskite stannate films of high quality can be grown on the BaSnO3(001) substrates for potential applications in transparent electronic devices. (C) 2016 AIP Publishing LLC.