Control of Lateral Composition Distribution in Graded Films of Soluble Solid Systems A1-xBx by Partitioned Dual-Beam Pulsed Laser Deposition

Lateral compositionally-graded thin films are powerful media for the observation of phase boundaries as well as for high-throughput materials exploration. We herein propose a method to prepare epitaxial lateral compositionally-graded films using a dual-beam pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method with two targets separated by a partition. Tuning the ambient pressure and the partition—substrate gap makes it possible to control of the gradient length of the deposits at the small sizes (≤ 10 mm) suitable for commercial oxide single crystal substrates. A simple Monte Carlo simulation qualitatively reproduced the characteristic features of the lateral thickness distribution. To demonstrate this method, we prepared (1–x)PbTiO3—xPbZrO3 and (1–x)LaMnO3—xLa0.6Sr0.4MnO3 films with lateral composition gradient widths of 10 and 1 mm, respectively, with the partitioned dual PLD.