Atomic force microscopy

In order to create high quality thin films, crystal substrates with large, atomically flat terraces are needed. Atomic force microscopy uses a microscopically sharp tip to map the surface morphology of both substrates and the grown films.

X-ray scattering

The lattice structure of the crystal is its most fundamental property and is probed with x-ray scattering or diffraction. This technique uses a focused, monochromatic x-ray beam to measure reflections from the crystal. These reflections reveal the grown crystal structure, mosaicity, and epitaxial relationship with the substrate.

Electronic and magnetic transport

The complex behavior of the valence electrons within oxides is the source of their amazing properties. Insight into these behaviors can be obtained by measuring how these electrons respond to application of electric and magentic fields. We use the Van der Pauw method with both LN2 and helium cryostats to measure resistivity, doping type, carrier mobility and density, and magnetotransport. More advanced transport measurements such as Hall effects are measured with Hall bar geometry achieved with photolithography.

Resonant elastic x-ray scattering

As with resonant x-ray absorption spectroscopy, resonant elastic x-ray scattering is an element specific technique. This measurement allows probing of long-range ordering phenomena of the charge, spin, and orbital states by probing the emergent non-lattice-derived Bragg reflections.

Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering

While resonant elastic x-ray scattering probes long range ordering, resonant inelastic x-ray scattering allows investigation of the low-energy excited states in a system, such as magnons, excitons, phonons, and etc. Due to the reciprocal space information obtained through scattering the dispersion of these excitations can also be mapped allowing the coupling paramaters, such as the magnetic exchangeJ, to be extracted.