Hydrogen-assisted pulsed-laser deposition of epitaxial CeO[sub 2] films on (001)InP.

We report on the growth of epitaxial CeO[sub 2] on (001) InP using hydrogen-assisted pulsed-laser deposition. Epitaxy is achieved via laser ablation of a CeO[sub 2] target in the presence of molecular hydrogen that is introduced during nucleation to reduce native In[sub 2]O[sub 3] from the InP surface. X-ray diffraction scans confirm a cube-on-cube epitaxial relationship between the oxide film and the InP substrate. Rapid heating to the deposition temperature proved important in avoiding significant decomposition of the InP surface prior to film growth. This result should enable the integration of electronic oxide functionality with InP-based semiconductor technologies, and provide a means to explore InP metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]