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 aswell as for high-throughputmaterials exploration.We herein propose amethod to prepare epitaxial lateral compositionally-graded films using a dual-beampulsed 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.