Novel Low Melting Point Barium and Strontium Precursors for the MOCVD Growth of Barium‐Strontium‐Titanate Films

Novel barium and strontium precursors, belonging to the family of volatile complexes of the alkaline earth element (AEE) fluorinated β-diketonates with polyglymes, [M(dfhd)2(tetraglyme)] [Hdfnd = 1,1,1,2,2,6,6,7,7,7-dekafluoro-heptane-3,5-dione, M = Ba (I), Sr (II)], are synthesized and tested with an aim to use them for metal-organic (MO)CVD of BaxSr1-xTiO3 (BST) thin films. The thermal behavior and composition of vapor phases for compounds I and II are studied by thermal analysis and mass spectrometry (MS). Considerable reduction of the melting point (down to 80–90 °C) for both compounds I and II, as compared to known volatile complexes, is achieved. By means of the developed precursors, epitaxial BST films (x = 0.5) are grown on SrTiO3 substrates by using the modified MOCVD facility. The quality of the grown films is examined by high-resolution (HR) X-ray diffraction (XRD) and high-resolution (HR) scanning electron microscopy (SEM).