Strontium ruthenate is a potential electrode material for ferroelectric capacitors. The electrical properties (e.g. leakage currents) of such thin film devices are dependent on the electronic properties of the electrode/ferroelectric junctions where Strontium ruthenate on Strontium titnate provides an excellent characteristic.
Also the film thickness is of great importance in the field of capacitors as it determines the size if the final capacitor. As the electronic devices are getting smaller and smaller the films need to get thinner as well. To meet the market requirements tremendous progress has been made in thin film materials science over the last decades. The development of new in-situ analysis techniques such as Reflective High Energy Electron Diffraction made it possible to grow high purity thin monolayer films in a controlled fashion. Analysis of these layers also underwent a revolution with the invention of various scanning probe methods, primarily the atomic force microscope and scanning tunnelling microscope.
The Strontium ruthenate was imaged with the Mobile S high resolution scanner operated in dynamic mode. The AFM image nicely shows the terrace structure of the deposited thin film.
