Super Structures: By thermally evaporating elemental layers onto substrates at ambient temperature, structural precursors are constructed with appropriate composition and modulation lengths to kinetically favor the formation of the desired superstructure. On annealing, these modulated elemental reactants form metastable [(Bi2Te3)x(TiTe2)y] superlattices (see picture).

A solid-state growth technique is described for the preparation of misfit layered compounds [(Bi2Te3)x{(TiTe2)y}1.36] from preconfigured reactants that provide independent control of both x and y. A procedure for optimizing the structure of the preconfigured amorphous reactants is presented demonstrating the importance of controlling both the composition and the absolute thicknesses of the component layers. Data are presented highlighting the effect of the diffusion distances of the preconfigured reactants on the kinetics of product formation.

Durch thermisches Aufdampfen elementarer Schichten wurden Strukturvorstufen mit adäquater Zusammensetzung und Modulationslänge hergestellt, die kinetisch kontrolliert eine gewünschte Überstruktur bilden. Beim Tempern lagern sich die modulierten elementaren Reaktanten in metastabile [(Bi2Te3)x(TiTe2)y]‐Übergitter um (siehe Bild).

A family of metastable [(Bi2Te3)x(TiTe2)y] superlattices (where × and y denote the number of layers of each of the two components) was prepared by annealing modulated elemental reactant precursors at temperatures below 280°C. Structural analysis by traditional XRD shows the superlattice structures are highly aligned to the substrate with many orders of diffraction peaks from the c direction of the superlattice. Off-axis diffraction techniques presented in this paper suggest that the order between the layers in the a-b direction of these superlattice structures is turbostratic. In this type of behavior, the quasi two-dimensional crystals of Bi2Te3 and TiTe2 that comprise the superlattice structure lie like a deck of cards thrown in disarray on a surface. An analysis of the diffraction data leading to this conclusion is given.