Growth kinetics of epitaxial Y-stabilized ZrO2 films deposited on InP

The nucleation and growth kinetics of Y-stabilized ZrO2 (YSZ) films have been studied by atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction. The investigated films are cube-on-cube epitaxially deposited on annealed (100)InP by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) exhibiting a two-dimensional growth habit in spite of the large system misfit (approximate to13% of tensile strain). Beyond the nucleation regime, the YSZ growth kinetics is analysed within the frame of the dynamic scaling theory. Such an analysis suggests the existence of a unique growth mechanism operating during a wide range of deposition times, i.e., 50-10(4) s. This mechanism corresponds to the diffusion ruled by the surface local curvature and limited by the irreversible aggregation to kinks. On the basis of the achieved results, models accounting for the surface diffusion enhancement induced by PLD are discussed.