Epitaxial platinum films are used as seed layers in a number of magnetic and ferroelectric devices. It is hence very important to understand the microstructure of the seed layer to control the subsequent multilayer growth. Previous studies of epitaxial Pt films have focused on AFM, XRD and RHEED measurements. However, there has been no detailed analysis of the microstructure as of yet. In this paper, we present results of a systematic study of the microstructure of epitaxial Pt films using conventional and high resolution transmission electron microscopy.
Platinum films were grown by sputtering in an UHV chamber at 500°C on (0001) sapphire. Figure 1 shows a plan view bright field image of a Pt film with the inset showing the <111> diffraction pattern. The spot pattern confirms the epitaxial nature of the film.