Surface roughness analysis of strontium-doped lanthanum cobaltite thin films prepared via chemical solution deposition

Abstract

We present a simple, efficient and low-cost method to fabricate nanometer smooth thin films. In this study, acetate-based chemical solution deposition was used to prepare strontium-doped lanthanum cobaltite thin films. Surface roughness analysis were done via atomic force microscopy. In addition, scanning electron microscopy were also done to see film coverage. Our method showed that we can fabricate films that is 1-3 nm in root-mean-square surface roughness. This shows that acetate-based chemical solution deposition can be used as a simple and low-cost thin film fabrication technique, that has comparable surface roughness with films that are fabricated from existing vacuum techniques and other solution-based methods.