Controllable Growth of Ni Nanocrystals Embedded in BaTiO3SrTiO3 Superlattices.docVIP

Modeling and Numerical Simulation of Material Science, 2013, 3, 4-8 Published Online January 2013 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/mnsms) Controllable Growth of Ni Nanocrystals Embedded in BaTiO /SrTiO Superlattices 3 3 Zhengwei Xiong, Weidong Wu Science and Technology on Plasma Physics Laboratory Research Center of Laser Fusion, China Academy of Engineering Physics Mianyan, China Email: xiongzhenwei207@163.com Received 2012 ABSTRACT BaTiO /SrTiO superlattices with embedded Ni nanocrystals (NCs) have been grown on SrTiO (001) substrate using 3 3 3 laser molecular beam epitaxy (L-MBE). In situ re ?ection high -energy electron diffraction (RHEED) was employed to investigate the process of lattice strain in the self-organization of Ni NCs and the epitaxial growth of BaTiO /SrTiO3 3 superlattices. The results indicated that the strain from large lattice mismatch drove the self-organization of Ni NCs. Also, the layer-by-layer growth of BaTiO /SrTiO superlattices and the island growth of Ni NCs were controllable ac- 3 3 curately. The fine alternation of the two processes would provide a possible route to engineer controllably the nano- composite microstructure. Keywords: Nanocrystal; Superlattices; Self-organization 1. Introduction and significant for both fundamental and application as- pects. Such composite films offer the combination of ferroelectric and ferromagnetic characteristics. This magnetoelectric interaction will be particularly strong in systems which simultaneously exhibit both ferromagnet- ism and ferroelectricity, i.e., in magnetoelectric multi- ferroics [16-18]. Oxide artificial superlattices, especially (001) oriented BaTiO /SrTiO superlattices (BTO/STO SLs), have been 3 3 attracted more attention because their dielectricand fer- roelectric properties can be enhanced by controlling the lattice strain along the polarized direction [1-3]. The di- electric matrix with the embedded meta