Diffusion-assisted molecular beam epitaxy of CuCrO${}_2$ thin films

Abstract

Using molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) to grow multi-elemental oxides (MEO) is generally challenging, partly due to difficulty in stoichiometry control. Occasionally, if one of the elements is volatile at the growth temperature, stoichiometry control can be greatly simplified using adsorption-controlled growth mode. Otherwise, stoichiometry control remains one of the main hurdles to achieving high quality MEO film growths. Here, we report another kind of self-limited growth mode, dubbed diffusion-assisted epitaxy, in which excess species diffuses into the substrate and leads to the desired stoichiometry, in a manner similar to the conventional adsorption-controlled epitaxy. Specifically, we demonstrate that using diffusion-assisted epitaxy, high-quality epitaxial CuCrO${}_2$ films can be grown over a wide growth window without precise flux control using MBE.

Accepted to the special edition of JVSTA on Thin Film Deposition for Materials Discovery

References in corpus (4)

• Spin-driven ferroelectricity and possible antiferroelectricity in triangular lattice antiferromagnets ACrO2 (A = Cu, Ag, Li, or Na)
• The properties of ultrapure delafossite metals
• Superconductivity phase diagrams of electron doped cuprates R(2-x)CexCuO4 (R = La, Pr, Nd, Sm, and Eu)
• Cascade of field-induced magnetic transitions in a frustrated antiferromagnetic metal