Pulsed Laser Deposition of Bi$_{0.4}$Ca$_{0.6}$MnO$_{3}$ Epitaxial Films on SrTiO$_{3}$ Buffered Silicon

Bi$_{0.4}$Ca$_{0.6}$MnO$_{3}$ is a photo-responsive material. Upon illumination with visible light, the resistivity of Bi$_{0.4}$Ca$_{0.6}$MnO$_{3}$ epitaxial thin films on oxide substrates decreases significantly in a wide temperature range due to the destruction of charge ordering, with the resistivity ($\rho )$ recovering upon subsequent blocking of the light. We demonstrate that Bi$_{0.4}$Ca$_{0.6}$MnO$_{3}$ can be grown epitaxially (by PLD) on SrTiO$_{3}$ buffered Si(001). (The Si was buffered with $\sim $ 100{\AA} epitaxial SrTiO$_{3}$ grown via a Motorola Molecular Beam Epitaxy process). In general, epitaxy on silicon is needed for integration of a detector component with complementary MOS readout. Epitaxial growth on Si also opens up the possibility of fabricating a free-standing, strain-free Bi$_{0.4}$Ca$_{0.6}$MnO$_{3}$ membrane via standard Si micromachining techniques. Such a free standing film may be expected to have properties similar to that of the bulk single crystal which exhibit permanent photoinduced reflectivity changes attractive for photonic device application. \newline