Composition control and thickness dependence of {100}-oriented epitaxial BiCoO3–BiFeO3 films grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition.

xBiCoO3–(1-x)BiFeO3 films were deposited by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. Although the film composition changed with deposition temperature, the composition could be adjusted by varying the input source gas composition at 700 °C. Moreover, adjusting the deposition time could change 0.16BiCoO3–0.84BiFeO3 film thickness. The crystal symmetry changed from rhombohedral to tetragonal as the film thickness decreased for 0.16BiCoO3–0.84BiFeO3 films grown on both (100)SrTiO3 and (100)cSrRuO3∥(100)SrTiO3 substrates, implying that the x value of the crystal symmetry boundaries between the tetragonal and rhombohedral structures changes with film thickness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]