Dramatic Mobility Enhancements in Doped SrTiO3 Thin Films by Defect Management

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that precise defect management in doped SrTiO3 thin films significantly enhances electron mobility, achieving record-high values through controlled defect chemistry during fabrication.

Contribution

It introduces a defect management strategy in pulsed laser deposition to produce high-mobility SrTiO3 films with bulk-quality properties.

Findings

Electron mobility up to 6600 cm2 V-1 s-1 at 2 K

Carrier density as low as 2.0 x 10^18 cm^-3

Defect chemistry control improves film quality

Abstract

We report bulk-quality n-type SrTiO3 (n-SrTiO3) thin films fabricated by pulsed laser deposition, with electron mobility as high as 6600 cm2 V-1 s-1 at 2 K and carrier density as low as 2.0 x 10^18cm-3 (~ 0.02 at. %), far exceeding previous pulsed laser deposition films. This result stems from precise strontium and oxygen vacancy defect chemistry management, providing a general approach for defect control in complex oxide heteroepitaxy.