Structural and physical properties of BiFeO3 thin films epitaxially grown on SrTiO3 (001) and polar (111) surfaces

The influence of surface polarity on the structural properties of BiFeO3 (BFO) thin films is investigated. BFO thin films are epitaxially grown on SrTiO3 (STO) (100) and polar (111) surfaces by oxygen plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. It is shown that the crystal structure, surface morphology, and defect states of BFO films grown on STO substrates with nonpolar (001) or polar (111) surfaces perform very differently. BFO/STO (001) is a fully strained tetragonal phase with orientation relationship (001)[100] BFO.(001)[100] STO, while BFO/STO (111) is a rhombohedral phase. BFO/STO (111) has rougher surface morphology and less defect states, which results in reduced leakage current and lower dielectric loss. Moreover, BFO films on both STO (001) and STO (111) are direct band oxides with similar band gaps of 2.65 eV and 2.67 eV, respectively.