The epitaxial (001)-oriented 250nm BiFeO3/50nm SrRuO3 films were deposited on
DyScO3 and SrTiO3 substrates, respectively. Following the growth, the cooling in
lower oxygen pressure results in the creation of oxygen vacancies at the surface of
the BiFeO3 film and the epitaxial strain drives these vacancies to diffuse from the
film surface to the film interface. The SrTiO3 substrate strongly absorbs oxygen
vacancies from the BiFeO3 film while the DyScO3 substrate does not. Therefore, the depth distribution of oxygen vacancies depends on the oxygen pressure during
cooling, the epitaxial strain, and the substrate absorbing oxygen vacancies.
The Dependence of Oxygen Vacancy Distributions in BiFeO3 Films on Oxygen
Pressure and Substrate. G.L.Yuan, L.W.Martin, R.Ramesh, A.Uedono: Applied
Physics Letters, 2009, 95[1], 012904