Thin Film Growth on Quasicrystalline Surfaces

Abstract

The surfaces of quasicrystals have proved to be a very interesting playground for thin film growth. They offer a complex potential energy surface where heterogeneous nucleation of islands at specific quasilattice sites is frequently observed. These islands tend to locally adopt the symmetry of the quasicrystalline substrate. For some specific adsorbates, a complete 2‐dimensional quasiperiodic metal overlayer is even formed. Other interesting phenomena are also observed in the multilayer regime. This includes the formation of novel structures, like 1‐dimensional quasiperiodic Cu films or Bi allotropes, the formation of nanoscale crystalline domains with 5‐fold rotational epitaxy, or the occurrence of quantum size effects influencing the film morphology. This article presents a short review of some of the achievements in thin film growth on quasicrystalline surfaces that the discovery of quasicrystals by Dan Shechtman has enabled.

Studies on icosahedral Ag–In–Yb: a prototype for Tsai-type quasicrystals

“…The clean surfaces of QCs have been used as aperiodic templates to prepare thin lms with novel structures. 63,78 It is predicted that the quasicrystalline order of the substrate can be propagated into the overlayer when a subset of quasilattice sites acts as preferential adsorption sites for deposited atoms or molecules. This is one way to construct quasicrystalline structures of single elements or molecules, which will be useful for studying the properties intrinsic to quasicrystalline structures by excluding the inuence of chemical complexity.…”

“…In fact, a large variety of elements and molecules have been deposited on the QC surfaces and the resulting ordering in the epitaxial layers has been studied. 63,78 In most cases, the overlayer thus obtained forms a monolayer of pseudomorphic lm, i.e., a lm forced to mimic the structure of the quasicrystalline substrate. Sharma et al recently reported the rst 3D quasicrystalline lms (multilayer Pb lms) grown on the surface of i-Ag-In-Yb.…”

Thermodynamic Aspects of Homogeneous Nucleation Enhanced by Icosahedral Short Range Order in Liquid Fcc-Type Alloys

“…Therefore, we can see the limits of the present thermodynamic approach to the present nucleation mechanisms. In this respect, the deposition of metallic atoms onto QC clean surfaces under ultrahigh vacuum by Fournée et al 34 clearly shows how complex the nucleation mechanisms can be. In order to further elucidate this iQC-mediated nucleation mechanism during solidification, ab initio/MD calculations and maybe in situ diffraction experiments should be performed.…”

From high temperature phase formation to transition metal substitution in the Fe/Al9Co2(001) system

“…For the determination of the electronic and crystallographic structures of Al-based CMA surfaces, millimeter-sized single crystals have commonly been used when available. These works have highlighted complex energy landscapes, characteristics exploited to propagate complexity in elemental and molecular thin films [10,11,12]. For specific systems and under particular growth conditions, CMA have also been formed voluntarily or fortuitously as surface alloys [13].…”