Andre Mkhoyan

Structure and transport in high pressure oxygen sputter-deposited BaSnO3−δ

BaSnO3 has recently been identified as a high mobility wide gap semiconductor with significant potential for room temperature oxide electronics. Here, a detailed study of the high pressure oxygen sputter-deposition, microstructure, morphology, and stoichiometry of epitaxial BaSnO3 on SrTiO3(001) and MgO(001) is reported, optimized conditions resulting in single-phase, relaxed, close to stoichiometric films. Most significantly, vacuum annealing is established as a facile route to n-doped BaSnO3−δ, leading to electron densities above 1019 cm−3, 5 mΩ cm resistivities, and room temperature mobility of 20 cm2 V−1 s−1 in 300-A-thick films on MgO(001). Mobility limiting factors, and the substantial scope for their improvement, are discussed.

Reduction of Contrast in ADF-STEM Images Due To Amorphous Layer

A study of high-resolution ADF imaging in aberration-corrected STEMs was carried out by multislice simulation. The presence of amorphous layers at the surface of a crystalline specimen is shown to significantly alter the visibility of the atomic columns in ADF images. After propagating through an amorphous layer a portion of the beam passes without any alteration while scattered electrons introduce a Gaussian background. An amorphous layer at the beam entry surface appears to have slightly more of an effect on the ADF image contrast than that of an amorphous layer at the exit surface, and this difference increases with increasing atomic number. With a constant crystal layer thickness, the reduction of contrast as a function of increasing amorphous layer is found to have the same behavior and trend, regardless of the initial crystal layer thickness.