Optical Properties of Highly Conductive SrMoO3 Oxide Thin Films in the THz Band and Beyond
Abstract Strontium molybdate (SrMoO3) thin films are grown epitaxially by pulsed laser deposition onto gadolinium scandate (GdScO3) substrates and characterized in the terahertz (THz) and visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum. X-ray diffraction measurements prove a high crystallinity and phase-pure growth of the thin films. The high-quality SrMoO3 thin films feature a room temperature DC conductivity of around $3{\frac {1}{\mu {\Omega } m}}$ 3 1 μ Ω m . SrMoO3 is characterized in the THz frequency range by time domain spectroscopy. The resulting AC conductivity is in excellent agreement with the DC value. A Lorentz-Drude oscillator approach models the THz and visible conductivity of SrMoO3 very well. We compare the results of the SrMoO3 thin films to a standard, sputtered gold film, with a resulting THz conductivity of $8{\frac {1}{\mu {\Omega } m}}$ 8 1 μ Ω m . The comparison demonstrates that oxide thin film–based devices can play an important role in future THz technology.