Fabrication and convergent X-ray nanobeam diffraction characterization of submicron-thickness SrTiO3 crystalline sheets

The creation of thin SrTiO3 crystals from (001)-oriented SrTiO3 bulk single crystals using focused ion beam milling techniques yields sheets with submicron thickness and arbitrary orientation within the (001) plane. Synchrotron x-ray nanodiffraction rocking curve widths of these SrTiO3 sheets are less than 0.02°, less than a factor of two larger than bulk SrTiO3, making these crystals suitable substrates for epitaxial thin film growth. The change in the rocking curve width is sufficiently small that we deduce that dislocations are not introduced into the SrTiO3 sheets. Observed lattice distortions are consistent with a low concentration of point defects.