Deposition of epitaxial ternary transition metal carbide films

• Thin epitaxial carbide films have been deposited in UHV by co-evaporation of Mo, Nb, Ti and V, with C60 as carbon source. Two separate systems were studied, Ti1-xVxCy on MgO(001) and Nb1-xMoxCy on MgO(111). We demonstrate the possibility to tune the cell parameter of an epitaxial ternary carbide film by control of the composition. Analysis with reciprocal space mapping show that deposition of Ti0.34V0.66C0.81 at 500 °C yields a strain-free film with perfect match towards the MgO(001) substrate. Also, a good manual control of the individual fluxes allows the design of tailor-made compositional gradient structures. An epitaxial linear carbide gradient film going from TiC to VC was deposited at 500 °C. Furthermore, the low deposition temperature allows the deposition of metastable carbide structures. This was shown with epitaxial growth of a Nb1-xMoxCy film at 500 and 600 °C. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Nyckelord

C60

Carbides

Epitaxy

Evaporation

TECHNOLOGY

TEKNIKVETENSKAP

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