The broad spectrum of electronic and optical properties exhibited by oxides offers tremendous opportunities for microelectronic devices, especially when a combination of properties in a single device is desired Here we describe the use of reactive molecular-beam epitaxy and pulsed-laser deposition to synthesize functional oxides, including ferroelectrics, ferromagnets, and materials that are both at the same time Owing to the dependence of properties on direction, it is often optimal to grow functional oxides in particular directions to maximize their properties for a specific application But these thin film techniques offer more than orientation control; customization of the film structure down to the atomic-layer level is possible Numerous examples of the controlled epitaxial growth of oxides with perovskite and perovskite-related structures, including superlattices and metastable phases, are shown In addition to integrating functional oxides with conventional semiconductors, standard semiconductor practices involving epitaxial strain, confined thickness, and modulation doping can also be applied to oxide thin films Results of fundamental scientific importance as well as results revealing the tremendous potential of utilizing functional oxide thin films to create devices with enhanced performance are described

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A Thin Film Approach to Engineering Functionality into Oxides

There has been a resurgence of complex oxides of late owing to their ferroelectric and ferromagnetic properties. Although these properties had been recognized decades ago, the renewed interest stems from modern deposition techniques that can produce high quality materials and attractive proposed device concepts. In addition to their use on their own, the interest is building on the use of these materials in a stack also. Ferroelectrics are dielectric materials that have spontaneous polarization in certain temperature range and show nonlinear polarization–electric field dependence called a hysteresis loop. The outstanding properties of the ferroelectrics are due to non-centro-symmetric crystal structure resulting from slight distortion of the cubic perovskite structure. The ferroelectric materials are ferroelastic also in that a change in shape results in a change in the electric polarization (thus electric field) developed in the crystal and vice versa. Therefore they can be used to transform acoustic wav...

Processing, Structure, Properties, and Applications of PZT Thin Films

This paper reports on a new type of microresonators enabled by micromachining of ion sliced X -cut LiNbO3 thin films. In operation, the device is excited into lateral vibrations, thus allowing the center frequency to be determined by the lithographically defined dimensions of the excitation electrodes. The demonstrated device has a high electromechanical coupling (kt2) of 11.5%-the highest attained for laterally vibrating microelectromechanical systems resonators. Device orientation was also varied to investigate its impact on kt2 and experimental data have shown good agreement with theoretical predictions. Several key performance parameters, including the quality factor (Q), the static capacitance, C0 , the temperature coefficient of frequency (TCF), and the power handling, are also characterized and the related experimental data are presented. The devices demonstrate Q 's up to 1800. The measured TCFs range from -55 to -69 ppm/K and can be considered sufficiently low for wideband RF filtering. The high electromechanical coupling and the high Q of this new class of devices show promise for the implementation of multifrequency wideband multiplexers and filter banks for reconfigurable RF front-ends.

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Design and Analysis of Lithium–Niobate-Based High Electromechanical Coupling RF-MEMS Resonators for Wideband Filtering

Optically pumped planar waveguide lasers, Part I: Fundamentals and fabrication techniques

We review and critique the recent developments on multifunctional oxide materials, which are gaining a good deal of interest. Recongnizing that this is a vast area, the focus of this treatment is mainly on high-κ dielectric, ferroelectric, magnetic, and multiferroic materials. Also, we consider ferrimagnetic oxides in the context of the new, rapidly developing field of negative-index metamaterials. This review is motivated by the recent resurgence of interest in complex oxides owing to their coupling of electrical, magnetic, thermal, mechanical, and optical properties, which make them suitable for a wide variety of applications, including heat, motion, electric, and magnetic sensors; tunable and compact microwave passive components; surface acoustic wave devices; nonlinear optics; and nonvolatile memory, and pave the way for designing multifunctional devices and unique applications in spintronics and negative refraction-index media. For most of the materials treated here, structural and physical propertie...

Oxides, Oxides, and More Oxides: High-κ Oxides, Ferroelectrics, Ferromagnetics, and Multiferroics

Lithium niobate has been grown in single-crystal thin-film form by molecular beam epitaxy. Single-crystal films were grown on bulk-crystal LiNbO3 and on sapphire (α-Al2O3). The layers have been excited as optical waveguides, and the refractive indices and optical propagation loss were measured.

R.A. Betts

Papers

Growth of thin-film lithium niobate by molecular beam epitaxy