Abstract: The structural and surface properties of high-quality epitaxial cubic MgxZn1-xO films deposited by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) were studied by X-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy respectively. For films of about 500nm thick, scans over a 30μm × 30μm area revealed a surface roughness Ra of about 100nm. This relatively large surface roughness is primarily attributed to the particulate and outgrowth during the PLD process. A good epitaxial growth on LaAlO3 (LAO) (100) substrates, however has been obtained for composition x = 0.9, 0. 7 and 0.5 with the heteroepitaxial relationship of ( 100 ) MgxZn1-xO//(100)LAO (out-of-plane) and (011)MgxZn1-xO// (010)LAO (in-plane). These structural qualities suggest that cubic MgxZn1-xO alloys films have good potential in a variety of optoelectronic device applications.

Key words: pulsed laser deposition, thin film, XRD