Journal
JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS
Volume 108, Issue 10, Pages -Publisher
AMER INST PHYSICS
DOI: 10.1063/1.3511347
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- Department of the Air Force under Air Force [FA8721-05-C-0002]
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The heteroepitaxial growth of Re (0001) films on Nb (110) surfaces has been investigated. Nb/Re bilayers were grown on A-plane sapphire-alpha-Al2O3 (11 (2) over bar0)-by molecular beam epitaxy. While Re grew with a (0001) surface, the in-plane epitaxial relationship with the underlying Nb could be best described as a combination of Kurdjumov-Sachs and Nishiyama-Wassermann orientations. This relationship was true regardless of Re film thickness. However, an evolution of the surface morphology with increasing Re thickness was observed, indicative of a Stranski-Krastanov growth mode. Re (0001) layers less than 150 angstrom thick were atomically smooth, with a typical rms roughness of less than 5 angstrom, while thicker films showed granular surface structures. And despite the presence of a substantial lattice misfit, the Re layer strain diminished rapidly and the Re lattice was fully relaxed by about 200 angstrom. The strain-free and atomically smooth surface of thin Re overlayers on Nb is ideal for the subsequent epitaxial growth of ultra-thin oxide tunnel barriers. Utilizing bcc/hcp (or bcc/fcc) heteroepitaxial pairs in advanced multilayer stacks may enable the growth of all-epitaxial superconductor/insulator/superconductor trilayers for Josephson junction-based devices and circuits. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3511347]
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