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    Oxygen-deficient oxide growth by subliming the oxide source material: The cause of silicide formation in rare earth oxides on silicon
    (Washington, DC : ACS, 2013) Bierwagen, O.; Proessdorf, A.; Niehle, M.; Grosse, F.; Trampert, A.; Klingsporn, M.
    The fundamental issue of oxygen stoichiometry in oxide thin film growth by subliming the source oxide is investigated by varying the additionally supplied oxygen during molecular beam epitaxy of RE2O3 (RE = Gd, La, Lu) thin films on Si(111). Supplying additional oxygen throughout the entire growth was found to prevent the formation of rare earth silicides observed in films grown without an oxygen source. Postgrowth vacuum annealing of oxygen stoichiometric films did not lead to silicide formation thereby confirming that the silicides do not form as a result of an interface instability at growth temperature in vacuum but rather due to an oxygen deficiency in the source vapor. The average oxygen deficiency of the rare-earth containing species in the source vapor was quantified by the 18O tracer technique and correlated with that of the source material, which gradually decomposed during sublimation. Therefore, any oxide growth by sublimation of the oxide source material requires additional oxygen to realize oxygen stoichiometric films.
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    Suitability of binary oxides for molecular-beam epitaxy source materials: A comprehensive thermodynamic analysis
    (Melville, NY : AIP Publ., 2020) Adkison, Kate M.; Shang, Shun-Li; Bocklund, Brandon J.; Klimm, Detlef; Schlom, Darrell G.; Liu, Zi-Kui
    We have conducted a comprehensive thermodynamic analysis of the volatility of 128 binary oxides to evaluate their suitability as source materials for oxide molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE). 16 solid or liquid oxides are identified that evaporate nearly congruently from stable oxide sources to gas species: As2O3, B2O3, BaO, MoO3, OsO4, P2O5, PbO, PuO2, Rb2O, Re2O7, Sb2O3, SeO2, SnO, ThO2, Tl2O, and WO3. An additional 24 oxides could provide molecular beams with dominant gas species of CeO, Cs2O, DyO, ErO, Ga2O, GdO, GeO, HfO, HoO, In2O, LaO, LuO, NdO, PmO, PrO, PuO, ScO, SiO, SmO, TbO, Te2O2, U2O6, VO2, and YO2. The present findings are in close accord with available experimental results in the literature. For example, As2O3, B2O3, BaO, MoO3, PbO, Sb2O3, and WO3 are the only oxides in the ideal category that have been used in MBE. The remaining oxides deemed ideal for MBE awaiting experimental verification. We also consider two-phase mixtures as a route to achieve the desired congruent evaporation characteristic of an ideal MBE source. These include (Ga2O3 + Ga) to produce a molecular beam of Ga2O(g), (GeO2 + Ge) to produce GeO(g), (SiO2 + Si) to produce SiO(g), (SnO2 + Sn) to produce SnO(g), etc.; these suboxide sources enable suboxide MBE. Our analysis provides the vapor pressures of the gas species over the condensed phases of 128 binary oxides, which may be either solid or liquid depending on the melting temperature. © 2020 Author(s).