Structural Properties of Single Crystal Rare-Earth Thin Films Y and Gd Grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy

Abstract

AbstractBy means of metal MBE technique with in-situ RHEED characterization, high-quality single crystal rare earth metal films of yttrium and gadolinium were grown as a necessary requirement for studying Gd/Y superlattices. The key step of this successful growth is the employment of the single-crystal Nb film as a buffer layer to eliminate the interaction of rare earth metals with most substrates. Structural analyses by X-ray diffraction and ion channeling show that these crystals exhibit not only complete texture of [00.1], but also narrow rocking curves both perpendicular (00.2) and parallel (10.0) to the film.