The interfacial abruptness and uniformity in heterostructures are critical to control their electronic and optical properties. With this perspective, this work demonstrates the 3-D atomistic-level mapping of the roughness and uniformity of buried epitaxial interfaces in Si/SiGe superlattices with a layer thickness in the 1.5-7.5 nm range. Herein, 3-D atom-by-atom maps were acquired and processed to generate iso-concentration surfaces highlighting local fluctuations in content at each interface. These generated surfaces were subsequently utilized to map the interfacial roughness and its spatial correlation length. The analysis revealed that the root mean squared roughness of the buried interfaces in the investigated superlattices is sensitive to the growth temperature with a value varying from about 0.2 nm (+/- 13%) to about 0.3 nm (+/- 11.5%) in the temperature range of 500-650 Celsius. The estimated horizontal correlation lengths were found to be 8.1 nm (+/- 5.8%) at 650 Celsius and 10.1 nm (+/- 6.2%) at 500 Celsius. Additionally, reducing the growth temperature was found to improve the interfacial abruptness, with 30 % smaller interfacial width is obtained at 500 Celsius. This behavior is attributed to the thermally activated atomic exchange at the surface during the heteroepitaxy. Finally, by testing different optical models with increasing levels of interfacial complexity, it is demonstrated that the observed atomic-level roughening at the interface must be accounted for to accurately describe the optical response of Si/SiGe heterostructures.
Excitonic insulators are long-sought-after quantum materials predicted to spontaneously open a gap by the Bose condensation of bound electron-hole pairs, namely, excitons, in their ground state. Since the theoretical conjecture, extensive efforts have been devoted to pursuing excitonic insulator platforms for exploring macroscopic quantum phenomena in real materials. Reliable evidences of excitonic character have been obtained in layered chalcogenides as promising candidates. However, owing to the interference of intrinsic lattice instabilities, it is still debatable whether those features, su…
Interfacial roughness and proximity effects in superconductor/ferromagnet CuNi/Nb heterostructures
本文报道了用磁控溅射法制备的Nb/Cu $_{60}$ Ni $_{40}$混合超导/铁磁体（S/F）双层膜的结构和电子性质。X射线和中子反射测量表明，沉积在Al $_2$ O $_3$（1 $\bar{1}$ 02）衬底上的异质结构的总界面粗糙度和不同界面粗糙度的垂直相关性都低于沉积在Si（111）衬底上的异质结构。互感实验研究了界面粗糙度对超导转变温度$T_C$的影响。这些测量结果表明，沉积在Al $_2$ O $_3$上的异质结构中的$\sim$比沉积在Si上的异质结构高$T_C$ 4%。我们将这种效应归因于S层中电子的更高平均自由程，这是由界面处的扩散散射的抑制引起的。然而，$T_C$对铁磁层厚度的依赖性在两个系统中没有显著差异，表明库珀对的透明性上的界面粗糙度的微弱影响。
Magnetic anisotropic pinning and symmetric breaking induced by interfacial coupling in topological-like ruthenate superlattices
University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学）；Quantum Science Center of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area（粤港澳大湾区量子科学中心）；Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院）
Artificially fabricated 3$d$/5$d$ superlattices (SLs) involve both strong electron correlation and spin-orbit coupling in one material by means of interfacial 3$d$-5$d$ coupling, whose mechanism remains mostly unexplored. In this work we investigated the mechanism of interfacial coupling in LaMnO$_3$/SrIrO$_3$ SLs by several spectroscopic approaches. Hard x-ray absorption, magnetic circular dichroism and photoemission spectra evidence the systematic change of the Ir ferromagnetism and the electronic structure with the change of the SL repetition period. First-principles calculations further re…
Interfacial Phase Change Memory (iPCM) retrench unnecessary power consumption due to wasted heat generated during phase change by reducing unnecessary entropic loss. In this study, an advanced iPCM (GeTe/Ti-Sb2Te3 Superlattice) is synthesized by doping Ti into Sb2Te3. Structural analysis and density functional theory (DFT) calculations confirm that bonding distortion and structurally well-confined layers contribute to improve phase change properties in iPCM. Ti-Sb2Te3 acts as an effective thermal barrier to localize the generated heat inside active region, which leads to reduction of switching…
Order-disorder transitions are widely explored in various vortex structures in condensed matter physics, i.e., in the type-II superconductors and Bose-Einstein condensates. In this study, we have investigated the ordering of the polar vortex phase in the (PZT)n/(STO)n superlattice systems through phase-field simulations. An antiorder state is discovered for short periodicity superlattice on an SSO substrate, owing to the huge interfacial coupling between PZT and STO as well as the giant in-plane polarization in STO layers due to the large tensile strain. Increasing the periodicity leads to the…
As the length-scales of materials decrease, heterogeneities associated with interfaces approach the importance of the surrounding materials. Emergent electronic and magnetic interface properties in superlattices have been studied extensively by both experiments and theory. $^{1-6}$ However, the presence of interfacial vibrations that impact phonon-mediated responses, like thermal conductivity $^{7,8}$, has only been inferred in experiments indirectly. While it is accepted that intrinsic phonons change near boundaries $^{9,10}$, the physical mechanisms and length-scales through which interfacia…
Complex polar superstructure controlled thermal conductivity in ferroelectric PbTiO3/SrTiO3 superlattices
Universidade de Santiago de Compostela（圣地亚哥-德孔波斯特拉大学）；Universidad Rey Juan Carlos（胡安卡洛斯国王大学）；Universitat de Barcelona（巴塞罗那大学）；Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2)（加泰罗尼亚纳米科学与技术研究所）；ALBA Synchrotron Light Facility（阿尔巴同步辐射光源设施）
By means of ab initio calculations the possibilities of switchable spin-polarized two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) at the interface of antiferromagnetic and ferroelectric perovskites, i.e., LaMnO3/BaTiO3 superlattice, were investigated. We demonstrate that at the heterostructure with TiO2/LaO interfacial layers the two-dimensional conducting state arises mainly localized within the interfacial MnO layer. The density of states at the Fermi-level can be tuned by ferroelectric polarization reversal. The conducting state coexists with magnetic one mainly arose from Mn atoms.
Atomic-Scale Characterization of Oxide Interfaces and Superlattices Using Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy
National Laboratory of the Rockies（落基山国家实验室）；Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Department, Colorado School of Mines（科罗拉多矿业学院冶金与材料工程系）；Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute, University of Colorado Boulder（科罗拉多大学博尔德分校可再生与可持续能源研究所）
Charge transfer and competing symmetry breaking drive orbital reconstruction and emergent ferromagnetism in insulating oxide superlattices
Indian Institute of Science（印度科学学院）；Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY（德国电子同步加速器中心）；ALBA Synchrotron Light Source（阿尔巴同步辐射光源）；Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory（阿贡国家实验室先进光子源）
Fabrication of ordered structures at the nanoscale limit poses a cornerstone challenge for modern technologies. In this work we show how naturally occurring moiré patterns in Ir(111)-supported graphene template the formation of 2D ordered arrays of substitutional boron species. A complementary experimental and theoretical approach provides a comprehensive description of the boron species distribution, bonding configurations, interfacial interaction with Ir(111) and the impact on graphene's electronic structure. Atomically-resolved scanning tunnelling microscopy images and density functional th…
Interface-Controlled Defect Engineering in TiN/TaN Superlattices for Enhanced Hardness and Fracture Toughness
Technische Universität Wien（维也纳工业大学）；Plansee (Shanghai) High Performance Material Ltd.（普莱思（上海）高性能材料有限公司）；Guangdong University of Technology（广东工业大学）；RWTH Aachen University（亚琛工业大学）；Austrian Academy of Sciences（奥地利科学院）；Uppsala University（乌普萨拉大学）
Forming a hetero-interface is a materials-design strategy that can access an astronomically large phase space. However, the immense phase space necessitates a high-throughput approach for optimal interface design. Here we introduce a high-throughput computational framework, InterMatch, for efficiently predicting charge transfer, strain, and superlattice structure of an interface by leveraging the databases of individual bulk materials. Specifically, the algorithm reads in the lattice vectors, density of states, and the stiffness tensors for each material in their isolated form from the Materia…
Large magnetoelectric response in thin films is highly desired for high-throughput and high-density microelectronic applications. However, the d0 rule in single-phase compounds usually results in a weak interaction between ferroelectric and magnetic orders; the magnetoelectric coupling via elastic resonance in composites restricts their thin-film integration in broadband. Here, we effectuate a concurrence of ferroelectric-like and antiferromagnetic phase transitions in Sr2IrO4/SrTiO3 superlattices by artificial design periodically non-equivalent interfaces, where a maximum magnetoelectric coef…
