Oxide nano-engineering using MBE

Molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) has achieved unparalleled control in the integration of semiconductors at the nanometer level; its use for the integration of oxides with similar nanoscale customization appears promising. This paper describes the use of reactive MBE to synthesize layered oxide heterostructures, including new compounds and metastable superlattices, involving monolayer-level integration of the dielectric and ferroelectric oxides SrO, SrTiO3, BaTiO3, PbTiO3, and Bi4Ti3O12. The controlled synthesis of such layered oxide heterostructures offers great potential for tailoring the dielectric and ferroelectric properties of materials. Oxide nano-engineering is accomplished by supplying the incident species in the desired layering sequence with submonolayer composition control. Comparisons between the growth of compound semiconductors and oxides by MBE are made. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.