With a background of step-and-terrace, selleck kinase inhibitor there appeared many small islands within a height of one unit cell. The existence of the islands indicated a different growth mode from the step-flow growth mode typically observed in high-quality SRO films grown on STO (001) substrates. While there was a model that attempted to rationalize the diverse growth modes observed in pulsed laser deposition of SRO on SrTiO3 (001) substrates, the existence of a highly polar surface of a Ti4+-terminated STO

(111) surface may be another factor to avoid step flow mode [23, 24]. The RMS roughness measured was 0.25 nm, which was much smaller than the value of 0.6 to 4.0 nm reported previouslyb[22]. Figure 3 Surface images taken with an atomic force

microscope. (a) SrTiO3 (111) substrate prepared by etching and subsequent annealing, (b) SrRuO3/SrTiO3 (001), and (c) SrRuO3/SrTiO3 (111). Figure 4a shows the temperature dependence of the resistivity of the two films. For the SRO100 film, the room temperature resistivity was ρ(300 K) ~ 280 μΩ · cm and the resistivity at 4 K was approximately 87 μΩ · cm with a residual resistivity ratio (RRR) of 3.2. While the resistivity at low temperatures was higher than expected, the upturn of resistivity at low temperatures observed for other group’s SRO films was not observed in our SRO100 film [25]. The kink in the selleck inhibitor resistivity near 150 K is known to be caused by the ferromagnetic transition temperature. All these features are consistent with those reported by other groups [5, 6]. The resistivity of the SRO111 film showed three different features in comparison

to that of the SRO100 film. First, the location of the resistivity kink on the temperature axis was also shifted to a higher temperature, Dynein implying a high ferromagnetic transition temperature. Second, the overall resistivity value for the SRO111 film was smaller than that for the SRO100 film, especially at low temperatures. Finally, the RRR (approximately 9) is higher. Figure 4 Transport and magnetic properties of SrRuO 3 /SrTiO 3 (001) and SrRuO 3 /SrTiO 3 (111). For SrRuO3/SrTiO3 (111), magnetization was measured in two field directions with respect to the substrate: surface normal and in-plane directions. (a) Resistivity curves. (b) Magnetization curves together with those of SrRuO3 films on SrTiO3 (001) and STO (110) substrates reported by Jung et al. [7]. (c) Magnetic hysteresis curves at 5 K. There are many reasons that affect the different RRR values in epitaxially grown SrRuO3 thin films. Chemical doping like (Ca,Sr)RuO3 or epitaxial strain caused by using different substrates can change the bandwidth (thus transport properties) probably due to different Ru-O-Ru bond angles [1]. If we use the same substrate for thin film growth, there are other factors that affect RRR. Oxygen vacancy and/or Ru vacancy can cause low RRR values and these accompany with expansion of the lattice.