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    Modulation of van der Waals and classical epitaxy induced by strain at the Si step edges in GeSbTe alloys
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2017) Zallo, Eugenio; Cecchi, Stefano; Boschker, Jos E.; Mio, Antonio M.; Arciprete, Fabrizio; Privitera, Stefania; Calarco, Raffaella
    The present work displays a route to design strain gradients at the interface between substrate and van der Waals bonded materials. The latter are expected to grow decoupled from the substrates and fully relaxed and thus, by definition, incompatible with conventional strain engineering. By the usage of passivated vicinal surfaces we are able to insert strain at step edges of layered chalcogenides, as demonstrated by the tilt of the epilayer in the growth direction with respect of the substrate orientation. The interplay between classical and van der Waals epitaxy can be modulated with an accurate choice of the substrate miscut. High quality crystalline GexSb2Te3+x with almost Ge1Sb2Te4 composition and improved degree of ordering of the vacancy layers is thus obtained by epitaxial growth of layers on 3–4° stepped Si substrates. These results highlight that it is possible to build and control strain in van der Waals systems, therefore opening up new prospects for the functionalization of epilayers by directly employing vicinal substrates.
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    Coincident-site lattice matching during van der Waals epitaxy
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2015) Boschker, Jos E.; Galves, Lauren A.; Flissikowski, Timur; Lopes, Joao Marcelo J.; Kiemer, Alexandra K.; Riechert, Henning; Calarco, Raffaella
    Van der Waals (vdW) epitaxy is an attractive method for the fabrication of vdW heterostructures. Here Sb2Te3 films grown on three different kind of graphene substrates (monolayer epitaxial graphene, quasi freestanding bilayer graphene and the SiC (6√3 × 6√3)R30° buffer layer) are used to study the vdW epitaxy between two 2-dimensionally (2D) bonded materials. It is shown that the Sb2Te3 /graphene interface is stable and that coincidence lattices are formed between the epilayers and substrate that depend on the size of the surface unit cell. This demonstrates that there is a significant, although relatively weak, interfacial interaction between the two materials. Lattice matching is thus relevant for vdW epitaxy with two 2D bonded materials and a fundamental design parameter for vdW heterostructures.
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    Formation of resonant bonding during growth of ultrathin GeTe films
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2017) Wang, Ruining; Zhang, Wei; Momand, Jamo; Ronneberger, Ider; Boschker, Jos E.; Mazzarello, Riccardo; Kooi, Bart J.; Riechert, Henning; Wuttig, Matthias; Calarco, Raffaella
    A highly unconventional growth scenario is reported upon deposition of GeTe films on the hydrogen passivated Si(111) surface. Initially, an amorphous film forms for growth parameters that should yield a crystalline material. The entire amorphous film then crystallizes once a critical thickness of four GeTe bilayers is reached, subsequently following the GeTe(111)