  Entropy stabilization has garnered significant attention as a new approach to
designing novel materials. Much of the work in this area has focused on bulk
ceramic processing, leaving entropy-stabilized thin films relatively
underexplored. Following an extensive multi-variable investigation of
polycrystalline (Mg$_{0.2}$Co$_{0.2}$Ni$_{0.2}$Cu$_{0.2}$Zn$_{0.2}$)O thin
films deposited via pulsed laser deposition (PLD), it is shown here that
substrate temperature and deposition pressure have strong and repeatable
effects on film texture and lattice parameter. Further analysis shows that
films deposited at lower temperatures and under lower oxygen chamber pressure
are $\sim$40x more electrically conductive than otherwise identical films grown
at higher temperature and pressure. This electronic conductivity is
hypothesized to be the result of polaron hopping mediated by transition metal
valence changes which compensate for oxygen off-stoichiometry.
