Controlled epitaxial integration of polar ZnO(0001) with Si(001)

We have grown ZnO(0001) single-crystalline thin films on Si(001) using cubic yttria-stabilized-zirconia (c-YSZ) buffer and analyzed details of epitaxy, twins, and interfaces. In-plane epitaxial relationship between ZnO and c-YSZ showed an interesting dependence on growth temperature where it changed from (0001)[(2) over bar 110](ZnO)parallel to(001)[110](c-YSZ) to (0001)[(2) over bar 110](ZnO)parallel to(001)[100](c-YSZ) as the temperature increased from 500 to 750 degrees C. At temperatures in between, a combination of these epitaxial relationships was observed. We found that the epitaxial relationships are determined by the surface termination characteristics of c-YSZ across the ZnO/c-YSZ interface. The crystallographic characteristics of c-ZnO/c-YSZ/Si(001) heterostructures can be precisely tuned to address the needs of next-generation solid-state devices. (C) 2013 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4795126]