Growth and nanoscale ferroelectric investigation of radiofrequency-sputtered LiNbO3 thin films

The radiofrequency sputtering technique has been used to deposit LiNbO3 thin films onto 〈1 1 1〉 Si, In2O3:Sn-coated 〈1 1 1〉 Si and amorphous SiO2 substrates. In essence, such as-grown composite structures are polycrystalline and exhibit columnar morphologies. To extend the classical macroscopic characterizations, we report on high-resolution inspection methods at the nanometric scale, involving atomic force microscopy in both non-contact and contact modes, that confirm the ferroelectric behavior of such as-deposited films.