Epitaxial (100)-oriented Mo/V superlattice grown on MgO(100) by dcMS and HiPIMS

• Epitaxial (100)-oriented Mo/V superlattices have been grown by HiPIMS and dcMS on MgO(100) for various temperatures.
• The study was aimed to investigate the effect of ionized HiPIMS process onlowering the growth temperature.
• The dcMS process was found to give superior superlattice growth at high growth temperature.
• The mixed Mo HiPIMS and V dcMS process gives best result at lower growth temperatures.

Epitaxial (100)-oriented Mo/V superlattices have been grown by High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering (HiPIMS) and dc Magnetron Sputtering (dcMS) on single-crystalline MgO(100) substrates at growth temperatures ranging from 30 °C to 600 °C. Superlattice bilayer period of Mo/V around 12/12 monolayers and 15 repeat periods was studied. This study aims to investigate the effect of the HiPIMS process on reducing the growth temperature of Mo/V superlattices using the high energy ionized Mo, V species in the HiPIMS plasma. In one case, the Mo layer was only grown with the HiPIMS process and V layer grown using the dcMS process while in another both layers were grown with the HiPIMS process. The as-deposited films were characterized by X-ray reflection and diffraction techniques. The dcMS process was found to give superior superlattice growth at high growth temperatures while a mixed Mo HiPIMS and V dcMS process gives better result at lower growth temperatures (300 °C). Room temperature growth reveals that neither the mixed Mo HiPIMS and V dcMS process nor the pure HiPIMS for both materials can produce better result compared to the pure dcMS process, which gives a relatively better result.