Epitaxial growth of BaBiO3 thin films on SrTiO3(001) and MgO(001) substrates using molecular beam epitaxy and controlling their crystal orientations competition

BaBiO3 has lately gained high research attention as a parent material for an interesting family of alloyed compositions with multiple technological applications. In order to grow a variety of structures, a versatile deposition tool such as molecular beam epitaxy has to be employed. In this work, molecular beam epitaxy growth of BaBiO3 on SrTiO3(001) and MgO(001) substrates is studied. When grown by molecular beam epitaxy on SrTiO3(001) or MgO(001) substrates, BaBiO3 is known to have two competing orientations namely, (001) and (011). Characterization of the thin film is carried out by X-ray diffraction, X-ray reflectivity, atomic force microscopy, Rutherford backscattering, and transmission electron microscopy. Pathways to block the growth of BaBiO3(011) and only grow the technologically relevant BaBiO3(001) are described for both substrates. Understanding of the enabler mechanism of the co-growth is established from epitaxy point of view. This can be beneficially utilized for growth of the different compositions of BaBiO3 material family in a more controlled manner.