High-throughput synthesis of functional oxide films

Epitaxy of metal oxides is of great interest since it provides a way to obtain desired novel properties for the applications such as electronics and energy. However, earlier epitaxy research's have been restricted because of the limited range of compositions and low-index of commercially available single crystal substrates. Consequently, novel epitaxy synthesis methods need to be developed in order to go beyond the present demands of of single crystal substrates in terms of phase, composition, size, orientation and symmetry. In this research work, we have developed a high-throughput synthesis process, called combinatorial substrate epitaxy (CSE), where an oxide film is grown epitaxially on a polycrystalline substrate. As a proof-of-concept, we firstly fabricated Ca3Co4O9 films on Al2O3 ceramics. Films have a good local epitaxial registry, and the Seebeck coefficient is about 170 µV/K at 300 K. High quality BiFeO3/La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 thin film heterostructures were secondly deposited on dense LaAlO3 ceramics prepared by spark plasma sintering. Piezoforce microscopy was used to confirm the local ferroelectric properties. Thirdly, we investigate the growth of of metastable monoclinic Dy2Ti2O7 epitaxial films on polycrystalline La2Ti2O7 substrates. We conclude that CSE approach opens the way towards unexpected electronic properties in oxide films.