The Structural Analysis Possibilities of Reflection High Energy Electron Diffraction

TL;DR

This paper reviews how Reflection High Energy Electron Diffraction (RHEED) can be used to determine detailed atomic structures of epitaxial thin films, including bulk and surface reconstructions, through analysis of Bragg and inelastic scattering.

Contribution

It introduces methods to extract comprehensive structural information from RHEED data, applying mature techniques from other fields to in-situ, real-time analysis of film growth.

Findings

RHEED provides detailed atomic structure information during film growth.

Techniques from other fields can be adapted for RHEED data analysis.

Real-time structural analysis of epitaxial films is feasible with these methods.

Abstract

The epitaxial growth of complex oxide thin films provide three avenues to generate unique properties: the ability to influence the 3-dimensional structure of the film, the presence of a surface, and the generation of an interface. In all three cases, a clear understanding of the resulting atomic structure is desirable. However, determining the full structure of an epitaxial thin film (lattice parameters, space group, atomic positions, surface reconstructions) on a routine basis is a serious challenge. In this paper we highlight the remarkable information that can be extracted from both the Bragg scattering and inelastic multiple scattering events that occur during Reflection High Energy Electron Diffraction. We review some methods to extract structural information and show how mature techniques used in other fields can be directly applied to the {\em in-situ} and real-time diffraction images of a growing film. These collection of techniques give access to both the epitaxially influenced 3 dimensional bulk structure of the film, and any reconstructions that may happen at the surface.