Search Results
The impact of ultraviolet laser excitation during Raman spectroscopy of hexagonal boron nitride thin films
We utilized excitation in the ultraviolet (UV) spectral range for the study of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) thin films on different substrates by Raman spectroscopy. Whereas UV excitation offers fundamental advantages for the investigation of h-BN and heterostructures with graphene, the actual Raman spectra recorded under ambient conditions reveal a temporal decay of the signal intensity. The disappearance of the Raman signal is found to be induced by thermally activated chemical reactions with ambient molecules at the h-BN surface. The chemical reactions could be strongly suppressed under vacuum conditions which, however, favor the formation of a carbonaceous surface contamination layer. For the improvement of the signal-to-noise ratio under ambient conditions, we propose a line-scan method for the acquisition of UV Raman spectra in atomically thin h-BN, a material which is expected to play a key role in future technologies based on 2D van der Waals heterostructures. © 2020 The Authors. Journal of Raman Spectroscopy published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Large-area van der Waals epitaxy and magnetic characterization of Fe3GeTe2 films on graphene
Scalable fabrication of magnetic 2D materials and heterostructures constitutes a crucial step for scaling down current spintronic devices and the development of novel spintronic applications. Here, we report on van der Waals (vdW) epitaxy of the layered magnetic metal Fe3GeTe2 (FGT) - a 2D crystal with highly tunable properties and a high prospect for room temperature ferromagnetism (FM) - directly on graphene by employing molecular beam epitaxy. Morphological and structural characterization confirmed the realization of large-area, continuous FGT/graphene heterostructure films with stable interfaces and good crystalline quality. Furthermore, magneto-transport and x-ray magnetic circular dichroism investigations confirmed a robust out-of-plane FM in the layers, comparable to state-of-the-art exfoliated flakes from bulk crystals. These results are highly relevant for further research on wafer-scale growth of vdW heterostructures combining FGT with other layered crystals such as transition metal dichalcogenides for the realization of multifunctional, atomically thin devices. © 2021 The Author(s).
Elektronenkorrelation und Dissipationsprozesse in Halbleiterquantenstrukturen, Teilvorhaben: Quantendrähte und Quantenpunkte auf strukturierten, hochindizierten Substraten im Verbund mit metallischen, magnetischen Schichten : Abschlussbericht über das F+E Vorhaben im BMBF-Förderschwerpunkt
[no abstract available]
Self-Assembly of Well-Separated AlN Nanowires Directly on Sputtered Metallic TiN Films
Herein, the self-assembled formation of AlN nanowires (NWs) by molecular beam epitaxy on sputtered TiN films on sapphire is demonstrated. This choice of substrate allows growth at an exceptionally high temperature of 1180 °C. In contrast to previous reports, the NWs are well separated and do not suffer from pronounced coalescence. This achievement is explained by sufficient Al adatom diffusion on the substrate and the NW sidewalls. The high crystalline quality of the NWs is evidenced by the observation of near-band-edge emission in the cathodoluminescence spectrum. The key factor for the low NW coalescence is the TiN film, which spectroscopic ellipsometry and Raman spectroscopy indicate to be stoichiometric. Its metallic nature will be beneficial for optoelectronic devices using these NWs as the basis for (Al,Ga)N/AlN heterostructures emitting in the deep ultraviolet spectral range.
Electronic properties of wurtzite GaAs: A correlated structural, optical, and theoretical analysis of the same polytypic GaAs nanowire
III-V compound semiconductor nanowires are generally characterized by the coexistence of zincblende and wurtzite structures. So far, this polytypism has impeded the determination of the electronic properties of the metastable wurtzite phase of GaAs, which thus remain highly controversial. In an effort to obtain new insights into this topic, we cross-correlate nanoscale spectral imaging by near-field scanning optical microscopy with a transmission electron microscopy analysis of the very same polytypic GaAs nanowire dispersed onto a Si wafer. Thus, spatially resolved photoluminescence spectra could be unambiguously assigned to nanowire segments whose structure is known with lattice-resolved accuracy. An emission energy of 1.528 eV was observed from extended zincblende segments, revealing that the dispersed nanowire was under uniaxial strain presumably due to interaction with its supporting substrate. These crucial information and the emission energy obtained for extended pure wurtzite segments were used to perform envelope function calculations of zincblende quantum disks in a wurtzite matrix as well as the inverse structure. In these calculations, we varied the fundamental bandgap, the electron mass, and the band offset between zincblende and wurtzite GaAs. From this multi-parameter comparison with the experimental data, we deduced that the bandgap between the Γ8 conduction and A valence band ranges from 1.532 to 1.539 eV in strain-free wurtzite GaAs, and estimated values of 1.507 to 1.514 eV for the Γ7–A bandgap. Address correspondence
Synthesis of quasi-free-standing bilayer graphene nanoribbons on SiC surfaces
Scaling graphene down to nanoribbons is a promising route for the implementation of this material into devices. Quantum confinement of charge carriers in such nanostructures, combined with the electric field-induced break of symmetry in AB-stacked bilayer graphene, leads to a band gap wider than that obtained solely by this symmetry breaking. Consequently, the possibility of fabricating AB-stacked bilayer graphene nanoribbons with high precision is very attractive for the purposes of applied and basic science. Here we show a method, which includes a straightforward air annealing, for the preparation of quasi-free-standing AB-bilayer nanoribbons with different widths on SiC(0001). Furthermore, the experiments reveal that the degree of disorder at the edges increases with the width, indicating that the narrower nanoribbons are more ordered in their edge termination. In general, the reported approach is a viable route towards the large-scale fabrication of bilayer graphene nanostructures with tailored dimensions and properties for specific applications.
A hybrid MBE-based growth method for large-area synthesis of stacked hexagonal boron nitride/graphene heterostructures
Van der Waals heterostructures combining hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) and graphene offer many potential advantages, but remain difficult to produce as continuous films over large areas. In particular, the growth of h-BN on graphene has proven to be challenging due to the inertness of the graphene surface. Here we exploit a scalable molecular beam epitaxy based method to allow both the h-BN and graphene to form in a stacked heterostructure in the favorable growth environment provided by a Ni(111) substrate. This involves first saturating a Ni film on MgO(111) with C, growing h-BN on the exposed metal surface, and precipitating the C back to the h-BN/Ni interface to form graphene. The resulting laterally continuous heterostructure is composed of a top layer of few-layer thick h-BN on an intermediate few-layer thick graphene, lying on top of Ni/MgO(111). Examinations by synchrotron-based grazing incidence diffraction, X-ray photoemission spectroscopy, and UV-Raman spectroscopy reveal that while the h-BN is relaxed, the lattice constant of graphene is significantly reduced, likely due to nitrogen doping. These results illustrate a different pathway for the production of h-BN/graphene heterostructures, and open a new perspective for the large-area preparation of heterosystems combining graphene and other 2D or 3D materials.