Chemical solution deposition of electronic oxide films

The chemical solution deposition (CSD) technique as a highly flexible method for the fabrication of electronic oxide thin films is reviewed. Various chemical aspects of different approaches are discussed, including sol-gel, hybrid, and metallo-organic decomposition (MOD) routes, which all have been successfully applied for the deposition of this class of materials. Principles of the selection and properties of the educts, the mechanism of film crystallization, and tailoring of microstructure through manipulation of deposition parameters are reported. The role of thermodynamics on the phase transformation process is also reviewed. Finally, some of the applications for chemical solution-derived thin films currently under development are illustrated, and recent advances, such as the deposition of less than 100-nm-thick films, lateral nanostructuring, and the formation of single nano-sized grains are considered. (C) 2004 Academie des sciences. Published by Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved.