Frank-van der Merwe Growth versus Volmer-Weber Growth in Successive Stacking of a Few-Layer Bi2Te3/Sb2Te3 by van der Waals Heteroepitaxy: The Critical Roles of Finite Lattice-Mismatch with Seed Substrates

Different growth mechanisms of van der Waals heteroepitaxial 2D Bi2Te3/Sb2Te3 stacking by choosing different substrates are reported. Sequential Bi2Te3/Sb2Te3 stacking growth mode becomes layer-by-layer growth on h-BN substrates, and 3D island growth on SiO2/Si. Compressive strain in the h-BN substrates imposed by the lattice mismatch plays a crucial role to determine different growth modes in these 2D nucleation kinetics models.