Growth of pure and doped cerium oxide thin film bilayers by pulsed laser deposition

Thin films of CeO2 have been grown on single crystal silicon wafers using pulsed laser deposition. X-ray diffraction was used to examine the effect of deposition parameters such as oxygen partial pressure and substrate temperature. The effect of laser fluence on deposition rate and surface morphology is also presented. The best results were obtained for films deposited at low oxygen partial pressures and high substrate temperatures, from a pre-ablated target using a laser fluence higher than 2 J cm−2. The growth of multilayers with increasing lattice constants is demonstrated by depositing a CeO2 layer doped with La over an indoped film, X-ray diffraction and lattice imaging in a transmission electron microscope were used to characterise the films.