Selective A- or B-site single termination on surfaces of layered oxide SrLaAlO4

We demonstrate that thermal annealing in cation controlled environments is an effective means to obtain atomically flat and chemically single terminated surfaces of a layer structured substrate. The effectiveness of the cation controlled annealing method is proved with SrLaAlO4, which is a representative layer structured substrate of A2BO4 type. Potassium ion scattering, in particular, shows that the method allows not only single termination but also selective termination of either A- or B-site on the substrate. We further demonstrate that the chemical nature of underlying SrLaAlO4 substrates is of critical importance in the growth of SrRuO3 thin films resulting in different morphologies and transport properties. © 2013 American Institute of Physics.