Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) is widely used to grow epitaxial thin films of quantum materials. Here, we use in situ x-ray scattering to study homoepitaxy of ${\mathrm{SrTiO}}_3$ by energetic deposition (e-PLD) versus PLD thermalized by a He background gas (th-PLD). Energetic PLD suppresses the lateral growth of two-dimensional islands, which suggests that particles with kinetic energies of $\sim 100$ eV break up smaller islands. Fast interlayer transport occurs for th-PLD as well as e-PLD, implying a process operating on submicrosecond time scales for incident particles with kinetic energies below 10 eV.

• Received 26 July 2019
• Revised 21 April 2020
• Accepted 20 May 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.101.241406