Unit cell distortion and surface morphology diversification in a SnTe/CdTe(001) topological crystalline insulator heterostructure: influence of defect azimuthal distribution

Abstract

Challenges and opportunities arising upon molecular-beam-epitaxial growth of topological crystalline insulator heterostructures composed of a rock-salt SnTe(001) layer of varying thickness (from 80 to 1000 nm) and a zinc-blende 4-μm-thick...

Direct Probe of the Ferromagnetic Proximity Effect at the Interface of SnTe/Fe Heterostructure by Polarized Neutron Reflectometry

“…Though we did not perform detailed structural analyses on the SnTe sample in this study yet, a crystal deformation of ϵ ∥ ∼ 10 –3 would be expected because, in our previous study, almost the same degree of the crystal deformation was detected in a SnTe layer similarly grown on a CdTe template. This is consistent with Sulich et al, who point out the possibility of a gap opening at an in-plane strain ϵ ∥ ∼ 10 –3 . However, even if the gap opens, its magnitude is considered to be too small to affect the magnetic proximity effect.…”

Surface Morphology and Electronic Properties of SnTe Films Prepared by Molecular Beam Epitaxy

“…At a beam ratio of 1.7, the distribution of the particles decreased to approximately 1% of that of the sample grown with J Te / J Sn = 3.2, and the particles basically disappeared when J Te / J Sn = 1.4. The influence of oxidation on the surface properties was systematically analyzed by Berchenko et al [ 10 ] The influence of the strain on the surface structure was also studied by Sulich, Adrian et al [ 24 ] The oxidation and tetragonal distortion of SnTe might be associated with the particle formation observed in this study, but a further study is needed to obtain the conclusive data.…”

Structural Properties of TaAs Weyl Semimetal Thin Films Grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy on GaAs(001) Substrates

“…Variations of RC FWHM, (in our case, increase from 0.8 ° to 2.2 ° for symmetric reflections in the two orthogonal sample position twisted around the surface normal) can occur in heteroepitaxial systems and were associated previously with the misfit dislocation anisotropy in characteristic directions. 22,23 Obviously the signal from a very thin layer always introduces additional broadening of the reflection curves, especially 2θ/θ one and RSM in the radial direction with respect to q [see Fig. 4a and Fig.…”

“…Variations of RC FWHM, (in our case, an increase from 0.8 to 2.2°for symmetric reflections in the two orthogonal sample positions twisted around the surface normal) can occur in heteroepitaxial systems and were associated previously with the misfit dislocation anisotropy in characteristic directions. 22,23 Obviously the signal from a very thin layer always introduces additional broadening of the reflection curves, especially the 2θ/θ one and RSM in the radial direction with respect to q (see Figures 4a and 5a,b). In our case, this effect on the FWHM of the 2θ/θ peak (see Figure 4) for the 0012 peak amounts to about 0.7°(006 reflection simulations for an ideal 18.1 nm thick InAs layer grown on GaAs(001); simulation program PANalytical Epitaxy 4.3a) which is about 3 times smaller than FWHM (2.02°) of the experimental TaAs peak.…”