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Atomically Defined Rare‐Earth Scandate Crystal Surfaces
Author(s) -
Kleibeuker Josée E.,
Koster Gertjan,
Siemons Wolter,
Dubbink David,
Kuiper Bouwe,
Blok Jeroen L.,
Yang ChanHo,
Ravichandran Jayakanth,
Ramesh Ramamoorthy,
ten Elshof Johan E.,
Blank Dave H. A.,
Rijnders Guus
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
advanced functional materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.069
H-Index - 322
eISSN - 1616-3028
pISSN - 1616-301X
DOI - 10.1002/adfm.201000889
Subject(s) - materials science , heterojunction , rare earth , epitaxy , oxide , fabrication , substrate (aquarium) , nanotechnology , thin film , etching (microfabrication) , lattice (music) , chemical engineering , optoelectronics , layer (electronics) , medicine , oceanography , alternative medicine , pathology , geology , engineering , metallurgy , physics , acoustics
The fabrication of well‐defined, atomically sharp substrate surfaces over a wide range of lattice parameters is reported, which is crucial for atomically regulated epitaxial growth of complex oxide heterostructures. By applying a framework for controlled selective wet etching of complex oxides on the stable rare‐earth scandates (REScO 3 ), a pseudocubic = 0.394 – 0.404 nm, the large chemical sensitivity of REScO 3 to basic solutions is exploited, which results in reproducible, single‐terminated surfaces. Time‐of‐flight mass‐spectroscopy measurements show that after wet etching the surfaces are predominantly ScO 2 ‐terminated. Moreover, the morphology study of SrRuO 3 thin‐film growth gives no evidence for mixed termination. Therefore, it is concluded that the REScO 3 surfaces are completely ScO 2 ‐terminated.