Ferroelectronics Lab

Abstract: Nanophotonic materials offer spectral and directional control over thermal emission, but in high-temperature oxidizing environments, their stability remains low. This limits their applications in technologies such as solid-state energy conversion and thermal barrier coatings. Here we show an epitaxial heterostructure of perovskite BaZr_0.5Hf_0.5O₃ (BZHO) and rocksalt MgO that is stable up to 1,100 °C in air. The heterostructure exhibits coherent atomic registry and clearly separated refractive-index-mismatched layers after prolonged exposure to this extreme environment. The immiscibility of the two materials is corroborated by the high formation energy of substitutional defects from density functional theory calculations. The epitaxy of immiscible refractory oxides is, therefore, an effective method to avoid prevalent thermal instabilities in nanophotonic materials, such as grain-growth degradation, interlayer mixing and oxidation. As a functional example, a BZHO/MgO photonic crystal is implemented as a filter to suppress long-wavelength thermal emission from the leading bulk selective emitter and effectively raise its cutoff energy by 20%, which can produce a corresponding gain in the efficiency of mobile thermophotovoltaic systems. Beyond BZHO/MgO, computational screening shows that hundreds of potential cubic oxide pairs fit the design principles of immiscible refractory photonics. Extending the concept to other material systems could enable further breakthroughs in a wide range of photonic and energy conversion applications.

Full text available from Nature Nanotechnology.

Abstract: Rutile compounds have exotic functional properties that can be applied for various electronic applications; however, the limited availability of epitaxial substrates has restricted the study of rutile thin films to a limited range of lattice parameters. Here, rutile GeO₂ is demonstrated as a new rutile substrate with lattice parameters of 𝑎=4.398 Å and 𝑐=2.863 Å. Rutile GeO₂ single crystals up to 4 mm in size are grown by the flux method. X-ray diffraction reveals high crystallinity with a rocking curve having a full width half-maximum of 0.0572°. After mechanical polishing, a surface roughness of less than 0.1 nm was obtained, and reflection high-energy electron diffraction shows a crystalline surface. Finally, epitaxial growth of (110)-oriented TiO₂ thin films on GeO₂ substrates was demonstrated using molecular beam epitaxy. Templated by rutile GeO₂ substrates, our findings open the possibility of stabilizing new rutile thin films and strain states for the tuning of physical properties.

Full text available from Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology A

Abstract: Entropic stabilization has evolved into a strategy to create new oxide materials and realize novel functional properties engineered through the alloy composition. Achieving an atomistic understanding of these properties to enable their design, however, has been challenging due to the local compositional and structural disorder that underlies their fundamental structure-property relationships. Here, we combine high-throughput atomistic calculations and linear regression algorithms to investigate the role of local configurational and structural disorder on the thermodynamics of vacancy formation in (MgCoNiCuZn)O-based entropy-stabilized oxides (ESOs) and their influence on the electrical properties. We find that the cation-vacancy formation energies decrease with increasing local tensile strain caused by the deviation of the bond lengths in ESOs from the equilibrium bond length in the binary oxides. The oxygen-vacancy formation strongly depends on structural distortions associated with the local configuration of chemical species. Vacancies in ESOs exhibit deep thermodynamic transition levels that inhibit electrical conduction. By applying the charge-neutrality condition, we determine that the equilibrium concentrations of both oxygen and cation vacancies increase with increasing Cu mole fraction. Our results demonstrate that tuning the local chemistry and associated structural distortions by varying alloy composition acts an engineering principle that enables controlled defect formation in multi-component alloys.

Full text available from npj computational materials

Abstract: Monolayer hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) has been widely considered as a fundamental building block for two–dimensional (2D) heterostructures and devices. However, the controlled and scalable synthesis of hBN and its 2D heterostructures has remained a daunting challenge. Here, we propose and further demonstrate a hBN/graphene (hBN/G) interface–mediated growth process for the controlled synthesis of high–quality monolayer hBN. We discover that the in–plane hBN/G interface can be precisely controlled, enabling the scalable epitaxy of unidirectional monolayer hBN on graphene, which exhibits a uniform moiré superlattice consistent with single–domain hBN, aligned to the underlying graphene lattice. Furthermore, we identify that the deep–ultraviolet emission at 6.12 eV stems from the 1s–exciton state of monolayer hBN with a giant renormalized direct bandgap on graphene. This work provides a viable path for the controlled synthesis of ultraclean, wafer–scale, atomically ordered 2D quantum materials, as well as the fabrication of 2D quantum electronic and optoelectronic devices.

Full text available from Advanced Materials