Ionic conductivity of epitactic MBE-grown BaF2 films

We studied parallel conductivities of pure BaF2 films with thicknesses ranging from 35 to 300 nm, epitaxially grown on Al2O3(0 1 2) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy technique. The overall conductivities of the films are found to increase with decreasing thickness. The detailed investigation of the overall conductance as a function of the thickness permits the deconvolution of bulk and boundary effects, the latter being attributed to distinct space charge effects in the interface between BaF2 film and Al2O3 substrate. The (extrinsic) Debye length (λ) is estimated to be about 8 nm at T=593 K, which corresponds to an impurity content of 1018/cm3 (singly ionized dopant assumed). This is consistent with the fact that we observed a constant boundary contribution for all investigated films (film thickness >4λ). It is also consistent with the Debye length observed in a previous report on CaF2/BaF2 heterolayers fabricated by the same technique, in which the low temperature enhancement was also attributed to space charges in BaF2 [Nature 408 (2000) 946]. Only at low temperatures (below 370 °C), the conductance seems to be influenced by strain effect.