Micron thick epitaxial (100) Ag film growth on MgO

Abstract

Epitaxial films of (100) Ag were deposited onto (100) MgO substrates to a thickness of 4 μm with no evidence of (111) nucleation. Deposited films were smooth and had large areas, 50 × 50 microns square, free of morphological defects. Films were deposited using a two-step process. First, pulsed laser deposition was used to grow a 1000 Å Ag (100) seed layer on the MgO substrate. Second, e−beam evaporation was used to grow the film to the desired thickness. The high quality of the resulting films will allow them to be used as templates for further epitaxial deposition of other applied materials.