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Oxide heterostructures

Atoms on the move

Nature Materials volume 13, pages 844–845 (2014)Cite this article

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The epitaxial growth of oxide heterostructures is generally thought to occur in a deterministic fashion. Recent results on the Ruddlesden–Popper phases show this is not always the case, and that a dynamic rearrangement of the layers during growth can spring up surprises.

One of the most promising techniques to synthesize Ruddlesden–Popper thin films is molecular beam epitaxy, an ultrahigh-vacuum growth technique in which molecular or atomic beams react to an epitaxial thin-film on a heated crystalline substrate. In the most ideal case, this film is grown atomic layer-by-atomic layer. Molecules or atoms impinge on the surface and two-dimensional islands nucleate. These islands grow by attachment of further atoms, until an atomic layer is completed by coalescence of these islands. This process, of nucleation and growth, is repeated for every subsequent atomic layer. For the growth of Ruddlesden–Popper phases, a shuttered deposition process is normally used, allowing for the control of the composition of each atomic layer. Writing in Nature Materials and Nature Communications, two independent collaborations now show5,6 that a set of dynamic phenomena occur during the growth process of Ruddlesden–Popper films, thus explaining why they have been challenging to grow in the past, but also expanding the range of materials that can be prepared as epitaxial heterostructures in the future.

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Figure 1: Ruddlesden–Popper phases, An+1BnO3n+1, where A and B are cations, and O an oxygen anion.

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  1. Guus Rijnders is at the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, 7500 AE Enschede, the Netherlands,

    Guus Rijnders

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  1. Guus Rijnders
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Correspondence to Guus Rijnders.

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Rijnders, G. Atoms on the move. Nature Mater 13, 844–845 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4071

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