Strain in epitaxial Bi2Se3 grown on GaN and graphene substrates: A reflection high-energy electron diffraction study

Topological insulator (TI) has been one of the focus research themes in condensed matter physics in recent years. Due to the relatively large energy bandgap, Bi2Se3 has been identified as one of the most promising three-dimensional TIs with application potentials. Epitaxial Bi2Se3 by molecular-beam epitaxy has been reported by many groups using different substrates. A common feature is that Bi2Se3 grows readily along the c-axis direction irrespective of the type and condition of the substrate. Because of the weak van deer Waals interaction between Bi2Se3 quintuple layers, the grown films are reported to be strain-free, taking the lattice constant of the bulk crystal. At the very initial stage of Bi2Se3 deposition, however, strain may still exist depending on the substrate. Strain may bring some drastic effects to the properties of the TIs and so achieving strained TIs can be of great fundamental interests as well as practical relevance. In this work, we employ reflection high-energy electron diffraction to follow the lattice constant evolution of Bi2Se3 during initial stage depositions on GaN and graphene, two very different substrates. We reveal that epitaxial Bi2Se3 is tensile strained on GaN but strain-free on graphene. Strain relaxation on GaN is gradual. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.