Metal-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition of Oxide Perovskite Films: A Facile Route to Complex Functional Systems

Perovskite oxide type materials exhibit a great profusion of unique functional properties and for this reason they have been named inorganic chameleon. Nevertheless, their actual applications require the availability of these systems in thin-film form synthesized through a simple, scalable, and straightforward technique. Metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) has been shown to be an outstanding process to prepare thin films of multi-component oxides. Herein, the focus is devoted to oxide perovskite thin films on both single crystal and non-single crystal substrates through MOCVD processes. This study discusses the principles and the basic rules governing conventional, plasma-enhanced, and liquid-assisted MOCVD processes. Among a plethora of oxide perovskites, several classes of functionalities belonging to the perovskite class: from superconductors to dielectrics and giant-k dielectrics, from colossal magnetoresistance to ionic conductors, piezoelectrics and ferroelectrics, are explored in detail.