Control of Lateral Composition Distribution in Graded Films of Soluble Solid Systems A1−xBx by Partitioned Dual-Beam Pulsed Laser Deposition

Abstract

Lateral compositionally-graded thin films are powerful media for the observation of phase boundaries as well as for high-throughput materials exploration. We herein propose a method to prepare epitaxial lateral compositionally-graded films using a dual-beam pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method with two targets separated by a partition. Tuning the ambient pressure and the partition—substrate gap makes it possible to control of the gradient length of the deposits at the small sizes (≤ 10 mm) suitable for commercial oxide single crystal substrates. A simple Monte Carlo simulation qualitatively reproduced the characteristic features of the lateral thickness distribution. To demonstrate this method, we prepared (1−x)PbTiO3—xPbZrO3 and (1−x)LaMnO3—xLa0.6Sr0.4MnO3 films with lateral composition gradient widths of 10 and 1 mm, respectively, with the partitioned dual PLD.