Role of seed layer in growing atomically flat TiTe2/Sb2Te3 heterostructure thin films at the wafer scale

Fuente: arXiv
Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs principaux: Nie, Chao, Shen, Xueyang, Zhang, Junying, Wen, Chenyu, Du, Yuxin, Xu, Yazhi, Mazzarello, Riccardo, Ma, En, Wang, Xiaozhe, Zhang, Wei, Wang, Jiang-Jing
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
_version_ 1866913822034362368
author Nie, Chao
Shen, Xueyang
Zhang, Junying
Wen, Chenyu
Du, Yuxin
Xu, Yazhi
Mazzarello, Riccardo
Ma, En
Wang, Xiaozhe
Zhang, Wei
Wang, Jiang-Jing
author_facet Nie, Chao
Shen, Xueyang
Zhang, Junying
Wen, Chenyu
Du, Yuxin
Xu, Yazhi
Mazzarello, Riccardo
Ma, En
Wang, Xiaozhe
Zhang, Wei
Wang, Jiang-Jing
contents Chalcogenide phase-change materials (PCMs) are a leading candidate for advanced memory and computing applications. Epitaxial-like growth of chalcogenide thin films at the wafer scale is important to guarantee the homogeneity of the thin film but is challenging with magnetron sputtering, particularly for the growth of phase-change heterostructure (PCH), such as TiTe2/Sb2Te3. In this work, we report how to obtain highly textured TiTe2/Sb2Te3 heterostructure thin films with atomically sharp interfaces on standard silicon substrates. By combining atomic-scale characterization and ab initio simulations, we reveal the critical role of the Sb2Te3 seed layer in forming a continuous Si-Sb-Te mixed transition layer, which provides a wafer-scale flat surface for the subsequent epitaxial-like growth of TiTe2/Sb2Te3 thin film. By gradually reducing the thickness of the seed layer, we determine its critical limit to be ~2 nm. Non-negligible in-plane tensile strain was observed in the TiTe2 slabs due to the lattice mismatch with the adjacent Sb2Te3 ones, suggesting that the chemical interaction across the structural gaps in the heterostructure is stronger than a pure van der Waals interaction. Finally, we outline the potential choices of chalcogenides for atomically flat seed layers on standard silicon substrates, which can be used for wafer-scale synthesis of other high-quality PCM or PCH thin films.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_00459
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Role of seed layer in growing atomically flat TiTe2/Sb2Te3 heterostructure thin films at the wafer scale
Nie, Chao
Shen, Xueyang
Zhang, Junying
Wen, Chenyu
Du, Yuxin
Xu, Yazhi
Mazzarello, Riccardo
Ma, En
Wang, Xiaozhe
Zhang, Wei
Wang, Jiang-Jing
Materials Science
Chalcogenide phase-change materials (PCMs) are a leading candidate for advanced memory and computing applications. Epitaxial-like growth of chalcogenide thin films at the wafer scale is important to guarantee the homogeneity of the thin film but is challenging with magnetron sputtering, particularly for the growth of phase-change heterostructure (PCH), such as TiTe2/Sb2Te3. In this work, we report how to obtain highly textured TiTe2/Sb2Te3 heterostructure thin films with atomically sharp interfaces on standard silicon substrates. By combining atomic-scale characterization and ab initio simulations, we reveal the critical role of the Sb2Te3 seed layer in forming a continuous Si-Sb-Te mixed transition layer, which provides a wafer-scale flat surface for the subsequent epitaxial-like growth of TiTe2/Sb2Te3 thin film. By gradually reducing the thickness of the seed layer, we determine its critical limit to be ~2 nm. Non-negligible in-plane tensile strain was observed in the TiTe2 slabs due to the lattice mismatch with the adjacent Sb2Te3 ones, suggesting that the chemical interaction across the structural gaps in the heterostructure is stronger than a pure van der Waals interaction. Finally, we outline the potential choices of chalcogenides for atomically flat seed layers on standard silicon substrates, which can be used for wafer-scale synthesis of other high-quality PCM or PCH thin films.
title Role of seed layer in growing atomically flat TiTe2/Sb2Te3 heterostructure thin films at the wafer scale
topic Materials Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.00459