Atomic Structure Determination of Ba4Ti5O10 and Ba4Ti4O11 in Epitaxial Barium Titanate Nanodomains Using HRTEM and Electron Diffraction

Perovskite BaTiO3 thin films have a wide range of applications for advanced devices. Especially, epitaxial BaTiO3 thin films are highly desirable for these advanced applications. So far, such epitaxial BaTiO3 films have been successfully fabricated on different single-crystal substrates using various deposition techniques including RF magnetron sputtering, molecular beam epitaxy, metallorganic chemical vapor deposition and pulsed laser deposition. Among the deposition techniques, RF magnetron sputtering is becoming a very important deposition method due to its capability of depositing thin films over a large substrate area. The microstructure and physical properties of these films are strongly affected by the deposition conditions, such as chemical doping, deposition temperature, oxygen partial pressure, vacuum level, electric and mechanical stress fields and strain arising from the lattice and/or thermal expansion mismatch between the film and substrate.