and real-time monitoring of structure formation during non-reactive sputter deposition of lanthanum and reactive sputter deposition of lanthanum nitride.

Lanthanum and lanthanum nitride thin films were deposited by magnetron sputtering onto silicon wafers covered by natural oxide. and real-time synchrotron radiation experiments during deposition reveal that lanthanum crystallizes in the face-centred cubic bulk phase. Lanthanum nitride, however, does not form the expected NaCl structure but crystallizes in the theoretically predicted metastable wurtzite and zincblende phases, whereas post-growth nitridation results in zincblende LaN.