Intrinsic Diffusion Properties of an Oxide: MgO

Abstract
We use molecular beam epitaxy to grow MgO of high structural quality with buried tracer layers for diffusion measurement. The diffusion observed on both sublattices is in good accord with predictions for the existing impurity content; on the anion sublattice the rates slightly exceed the theory for bound Schottky pairs alone. The results provide new and substantial support for the application to oxides of theories that determine the energy and entropy of the nonlinear dielectric relaxation fields near charged defects in ionic crystals.