1. Determining Surface Terminations and Chirality of Noncentrosymmetric FeGe Thin Films via Scanning Tunneling Microscopy
- Author
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Jay Gupta, Adam Ahmed, Joseph Corbett, Tiancong Zhu, Steven J. Tjung, Jonathan Guerrero-Sanchez, Noboru Takeuchi, Takahiro Takeuchi, Roland Kawakami, and Jacob Repicky
- Subjects
Materials science ,Condensed matter physics ,Low-energy electron diffraction ,law.invention ,Condensed Matter::Materials Science ,Lattice constant ,Electron diffraction ,law ,General Materials Science ,Density functional theory ,Scanning tunneling microscope ,Thin film ,Chirality (chemistry) ,Molecular beam epitaxy - Abstract
Scanning tunneling microscopy was used to study the surfaces of 20-100 nm thick FeGe films grown by molecular beam epitaxy. An average surface lattice constant of ∼6.8 Å, in agreement with the bulk value, was observed via scanning tunneling microscopy, low energy electron diffraction, and reflection high energy electron diffraction. Each of the four possible chemical terminations in the FeGe films were identified by comparing atomic-resolution images, showing distinct contrast with simulations from density functional theory calculations. A detailed study of the atomic layering order and registry across step edges allows us to uniquely determine the grain orientation and chirality in these noncentrosymmetric films.
- Published
- 2020