Oxide Thin Films and Heterostructures

To obtain high quality samples of complex oxides, we fabricate epitaxial layers and heterostructures of these compounds by optimized pulsed laser deposition. With this technique, films and multilayers can be grown from a broad spectrum of materials, thereby maintaining structural control down to atomic dimensions.

photo showing our pulsed laser deposition system

Special interest our research lies on the transport properties of such thin films an heterostructures, which sometimes show quite different behaviour compared to the properties of the contained bulk materials. More interestingly interfaces in oxides reveal novel electronic phases.

photograph of a patterned oxide thin film

The on-grown thin films are routinely characterized by x-ray diffraction and scanning probe microscopy. Furthermore patterning of the samples by means of optical or electron-beam lithography enables us to precisely measure and control the transport properties on a wide range of temperature and electric and magnetic fields.