Artificially layered oxides by pulsed laser deposition

In this thesis, a systematic study of preparation of artificially layered oxide materials is presented. An advantage of thin film techniques to fabricate new materials in this way is the stabilizing effect of the substrate crystal. If properly chosen to fit the expected thin film crystal structure and, in addition, well prepared with respect to the surface quality, many crystal structures are shown to be stable. These only exist in thin film form or normally require extreme synthesis conditions. Furthermore, the structures that are formed are highly kinetically stabilized because constituents are supplied successively. This allows one to synthesize extremely rare structures which are metastable. The accompanying macroscopic properties are expected to be correspondingly unique. Furthermore, a systematically study of the effect of structural deviations on these properties become available.