Growth, Characterization and Measurement of Epitaxial Sr2RuO4 Thin Films

In this thesis, the growth of c-axis oriented Sr2RuO4 thin films using pulsed laser deposition and their electrical transport properties are systematically discussed. The deposition and optimization process involved several progressive steps. Specifically, the first focus was on the Sr2RuO4 phase optimization in films grown on lattice-matched (LaAlO3)0.3(SrAl0.5Ta0.5O3)0.7 (LSAT) substrates. Film composition was found to be greatly influenced by changes in oxygen pressure, substrate temperature, target to substrate distance, and laser fluence. High oxygen pressure, low substrate temperature, large target to substrate distance, and high laser fluence increased the tendency to form the Ru-rich SrRuO3 phase in the film. The second focus was on improving the electrical transport properties of Sr2RuO4 from metal-insulating to fully metallic and eventually to superconducting behavior. It was observed that the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the Sr2RuO4 (006) rocking curves in x-ray diffraction (XRD) scan was related to the quality of the electrical transport response. By fine tuning the deposition parameters to obtain low FWHM values, the electrical transport behavior of the Sr2RuO4 thin films was consistently improved from metal-insulating to fully metallic. In addition, localized superconductivity with enhanced superconducting transition temperature Tc onset was also observed among the fully metallic film. An in-depth study of the XRD results in fully metallic films indicated the existence of defects (intergrowths) along the c-axis direction, which caused localized c-axis tensile strain. The existence of structural defects within the film was likely to be responsible for the fact that only localized superconductivity was observed in the films. Furthermore, the enhanced superconducting transition temperature (Tc) relative to bulk single crystals is likely to be associated to localized strain in the film. Finally, Nb doped SrTiO3 substrates were used to achieve better quality growth of partial superconducting Sr2RuO4 thin films. Sr2RuO4 films grown on Nb doped SrTiO3 substrates had smaller FWHM values and lower level of c-axis tensile strain compared to those on LSAT substrates. Various partially superconducting films with different thicknesses and different superconducting Tc values are presented, and correlations between fabrication process, film crystalline quality as well as transport properties are discussed. This work provides better understanding of the importance of maximizing crystalline quality by delicate fine tuning of PLD deposition parameters to achieve high quality superconducting films