title: Self-limiting growth of metal fluoride thin films by oxidation reactions employing molecular precursors
abstract: FeF (2) films are grown by the reaction of XeF (2) and SeF (6) with iron foil. The growth initially follows the Mott-Cabrera parabolic rate law, indicating that the process is diffusion limited. At a certain film thickness, however, the growth abruptly stops, with the thickness using XeF (2) being nearly double that with SeF (6). It is suggested that the shutdown is due to the inability of the molecules to dissociate when too far from the substrate and that SeF (6) must approach more closely than XeF (2). This work suggests the use of molecular precursors to grow thin films via a self-limiting chemical process.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of California, Riverside, California 92521 and Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Qiu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Yarmoff