Epitaxial Growth of 'Strain-Free' Indium Oxide Films on (111) Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia by Metal-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition

In this work, In2O3 thin films were grown on (111) yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) at different temperature. It is found that samples grown at low temperature showed lower residual stress but higher mosaicity while high growth temperatures could also cause deterioration in crystal quality due to increasing lattice mismatch. To obtain high quality In2O3 film with low residual strain, a 30-nm thick layer grown at 530 °C was introduced as buffer layer, considering both stress relaxation and crystalline mosaicity. By using two-step growth method, a 400 nm-thick, high quality, near-strain-free In2O3 thin film with the full width at half maximum (FWHM) values of (222) diffraction peaks being as narrow as 648 arcsec was successfully obtained.