1. Vapor phase epitaxy of antimonene-like nanocrystals on germanium by an MOCVD process
- Author
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Cecchini, Raimondo, Martella, Christian, Wiemer, Claudia, Lamperti, Alessio, Debernardi, Alberto, Nasi, Lucia, Lazzarini, Laura, Molle, Alessandro, and Longo, Massimo
- Subjects
Condensed Matter - Materials Science - Abstract
Synthetic two-dimensional (2D) mono-elemental crystals, namely X-enes, have recently emerged as a new frontier for atomically thin nanomaterials with on-demand properties. Among X-enes, antimonene, the \b{eta}-phase allotrope of antimony, is formed by atoms arranged in buckled hexagonal rings bearing a comparatively higher environmental stability with respect to other players of this kind. However, the exploitation of monolayer or few-layer antimonene and other 2D materials in novel opto-electronic devices is still hurdled by the lack of scalable processes. Here, we demonstrated the viability of a bottom-up process for the epitaxial growth of antimonene-like nanocrystals (ANCs), based on a Metal-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) process, assisted by gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) on commensurate (111)-terminated Ge surfaces. The growth mechanism was investigated by large- and local-area microstructural analysis, revealing that the etching of germanium, catalyzed by the Au NPs, led to the ANCs growth on the exposed Ge (111) planes. As a supportive picture, ab-initio calculations rationalized this epitaxial relationship in terms of compressively strained \b{eta}-phase ANCs. Our process could pave the way to the realization of large-area antimonene layers by a deposition process compatible with the current semiconductor manufacturing technology.
- Published
- 2023
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