Kavli Affiliate: Harry A. Atwater
| First 5 Authors: Prachi Thureja, Andrew W. Nyholm, Martin Thomaschewski, Phillip R. Jahelka, Julie Belleville
| Summary:
We report a scalable approach for fabricating single-crystal barium titanate
(BTO) thin films through spalling from bulk substrates. Conventional thin film
growth techniques often face challenges in achieving high-quality single
crystal microstructure over large areas, resulting in reduced performance in
functional devices. In contrast, spalling – i.e., performing stress-induced
exfoliation of bulk single crystals – enables the separation of single crystal
thin films with controllable thicknesses ranging from 100 nm to 15 um and
lateral dimensions up to several millimeters. Electro-optic characterization of
the spalled films yields a Pockels coefficient of r33 = 55 pm/V in multi-domain
regions and 160 pm/V in single-domain regions, leading to projections up to
1980 pm/V for r42 under conditions of unclamped excitation. Our results
indicate that spalled BTO single-crystal thin films preserve bulk electro-optic
properties and exceed the performance of commercially available thin-film
lithium niobate, making them suitable for integration in advanced photonic and
optoelectronic devices.
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