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Crystal structure and composition are inter-dependent and decoupling their effects on surface reactivity is challenging. Using low-energy electron microscopy to spatially and temporally resolve the oxide film growth during the oxidation of NiAl(100), we differentiate such coupled effects by monitoring oxide growth while simultaneously fine-tuning the surface structure and composition during oxidation. We demonstrate that the oxidation of chemically ordered surfaces results in compact oxide island growth whereas non-compact oxide growth during the surface phase transition. By incorporating the surface phase transition induced chemical disordering into kinetic Monte Carlo simulations, we show that the non-compact oxide growth is induced by the composition effect on the surface diffusion of oxygen, which can be described by the concept of “ant in the labyrinth”.

How an interfacial superconductivity emerges during the nucleation and epitaxy is of great importance not only for unveiling the physical insights but also for finding a feasible way to tune the superconductivity via interfacial engineering. In this work, we report the nanoscale creation of a robust and relatively homogeneous interfacial superconductivity (TC ≈ 13 K) on the epitaxial FeTe surface, by van der Waals epitaxy of single-quintuple-layer topological insulator Bi2Te3. Our study suggests that the superconductivity in the Bi2Te3/FeTe heterostructure is generated at the interface and that the superconductivity at the interface does not enhance or weaken with the increase of the Bi2Te3 thickness beyond 1 quintuple layer (QL). The observation of the topological surface states crossing Fermi energy in the Bi2Te3/FeTe heterostructure with the average Bi2Te3 thickness of about 20 QL provides further evidence that this heterostructure may potentially host Majorana zero modes.

In this work, we demonstrate that the nonsuperconducting single-layer FeTe can become superconducting when its structure is properly tuned by epitaxially growing it on Bi2Te3 thin films. The properties of the single-layer FeTe deviate strongly from its bulk counterpart, as evidenced by the emergence of a large superconductivity gap (3.3 meV) and an apparent 8 × 2 superlattice (SL). Our first-principles calculations indicate that the 8 × 2 SL and the emergence of the novel superconducting phase are essentially the result of the structural change in FeTe due to the presence of the underlying Bi2Te3 layer. The structural change in FeTe likely suppresses the antiferromagnetic order in the FeTe and leads to superconductivity. Our work clearly demonstrates that moire pattern engineering in a heterostructure is a reachable dimension for investigating novel materials and material properties.

Tuning interactions between Dirac states in graphene has attracted enormous interest because it can modify the electronic spectrum of the two-dimensional material, enhance electron correlations, and give rise to novel condensed-matter phases such as superconductors, Mott insulators, Wigner crystals and quantum anomalous Hall insulators. Previous works predominantly focus on the flat band dispersion of coupled Dirac states from different graphene layers. In this work, we propose a new route to realizing flat band physics in monolayer graphene under a periodic modulation from substrates. We take gaphene/SiC heterostructure as a role model and demonstrate experimentally the substrate modulation leads to Dirac fermion cloning and consequently, the proximity of the two Dirac cones of monolayer graphene in momentum space. Our theoretical modeling captures the cloning mechanism of Dirac states and indicates that flat bands can emerge at certain magic lattice constants of substrate when the period of modulation becomes nearly commensurate with the $(\sqrt{3}\times\sqrt{3})R30^{\circ}$ supercell of graphene. The results show that the epitaxial monolayer graphene is a promising platform for exploring exotic many-body quantum phases arising from interactions between Dirac electrons.

How an interfacial superconductivity emerges during the nucleation and epitaxy is of great importance not only for unveiling the physical insights but also for finding a feasible way to tune the superconductivity via interfacial engineering. In this work, we report the nanoscale creation of a robust and relatively homogeneous interfacial superconductivity (

Epiphytes and hemi-epiphytes are important floristic, structural and functional components of tropical rainforests. Their specific responses to light, temperature and water conditions during seed germination allow them to coexist with tropical forest trees. Here we investigated the effects of temperature, red to far-red light ratio (R:FR ratio) and water stress on seed germination of Ficus virens in tropical seasonal rainforest in Southwest China. We used incubators to create required temperature regimes, polyester filters to produce R:FR ratio gradients and mannitol solutions to simulate water stress. It was found that seed germination of F. virens was inhibited in the simulated understory conditions, i.e., at lower temperature (22/23°C), especially when combined with the R:FR ratio of 0.25, for which the germination percentage was less than 20%. In contrast, the seed germination percentages in the simulated canopy environment (22/32°C) showed no significant difference between R:FR ratios, with an average seed germination percentage as high as 65.8%. Seed germination delayed and decreased along with increasing water stress and was completely inhibited at -2.5 MPa, which might suggest that it is a kind of adaptation for F. virens seeds to detect the rainy season as germination chance on the canopy. Therefore, our study revealed the physiological mechanism for F. virens to be able to adapt to canopy environment.

By temperature-, time-, and pressure-resolved imaging of the dynamics of surface steps on NiAl(100) during its oxidation, we provide direct evidence of the significant effects of atomic steps in controlling the local thermodynamic driving force for oxidation. Our results show that the inherent barriers associated with step crossing by surface species of oxygen cause a heterogeneous oxygen concentration across the crystal surface, giving rise to local nonequilibrium effects governing oxidation even for surfaces that are globally in equilibrium. The asymmetry in the step-crossing barriers for oxygen atoms crossing up or down steps is such that descendant steps exert a local driving force that favors oxidation, whereas ascendant steps locally destabilize the surface oxide in their vicinity. The local differences in the thermodynamic driving force for oxidation due to atomic steps and step bunches give rise to novel phenomena, such as nonmonotonous oxide growth and the net translation motion of surface oxide ...

The heterostructures of the ferromagnet (Cr2Te3) and topological insulator (Bi2Te3) have been grown by molecular beam epitaxy. The topological Hall effect as evidence of the existence of magnetic skyrmions has been observed in the samples in which Cr2Te3 was grown on top of Bi2Te3. Detailed structural characterizations have unambiguously revealed the presence of intercalated Bi bilayer nanosheets right at the interface of those samples. The atomistic spin-dynamics simulations have further confirmed the existence of magnetic skyrmions in such systems. The heterostructures of ferromagnet and topological insulator that host magnetic skyrmions may provide an important building block for next generation of spintronics devices.

The oxidation behavior of NiAl(100) by molecular oxygen and water vapor under a near-ambient pressure of 0.2 Torr is monitored using ambient-pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. O2 exposure leads to the selective oxidation of Al at temperatures ranging from 40 to 500 °C. By contrast, H2O exposure results in the selective oxidation of Al at 40 and 200 °C, and increasing the oxidation temperature above 300 °C leads to simultaneous formation of both Al and Ni oxides. These results demonstrate that the O2 oxidation forms a nearly stoichiometric Al2O3 structure that provides improved protection to the metallic substrate by barring the outward diffusion of metals. By contrast, the H2O oxidation results in the formation of a defective oxide layer that allows outward diffusion of Ni at elevated temperatures for simultaneous NiO formation.

Majorana fermions have been predicted to exist at the edge states of a two-dimensional topological superconductor. We fabricated single quintuple layer (QL) Bi2Te3/FeTe heterostructure with the step-flow epitaxy method and studied the topological properties of this system by using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy. We observed the coexistence of robust superconductivity and edge states on the single QL Bi2Te3 islands which can be potential evidence for topological superconductor.

The crystallization of amorphous aluminum oxide thin films formed on NiAl(100) has been investigated using in-situ low energy electron microscopy, low energy electron diffraction, and scanning tunneling microscopy. It is found that both the annealing temperature and annealing time play crucial roles in the crystallization process. A critical temperature range of 450°C–500°C exists for the crystallization to occur within a reasonably short annealing time. The initially uniform oxide film first becomes roughened, followed by coalescing into amorphous-like oxide islands; further annealing results in the conversion of the amorphous oxide islands into crystalline oxide stripes. The density of the crystalline oxide stripes increases concomitantly with the decrease in the density of the amorphous oxide islands for annealing at a higher temperature or longer time.

In this invited paper, we demonstrate how physical analysis techniques that are commonly used in integrated circuits failure analysis can be applied to detect the failure defects associated with ultrathin gate dielectric wear-out and breakdown in [email protected] materials and investigate the associated failure mechanism(s) based on the defect chemistry. The key contributions of this work are perhaps focused on two areas: (1) how to correlate the failure mechanisms in [email protected]/metal gate technology during wear-out and breakdown to device processing and materials and (2) how the understanding of these new failure mechanisms can be used in proposing ''design for reliability'' (DFR) initiatives for complex and expensive future CMOS nanoelectronic technology nodes of 22nm and 15nm. Hf-based [email protected] materials in conjunction with various gate electrode technologies will be used as main examples while other potential [email protected] gate materials such as cerium oxide (CeO"2) will also be demonstrated to further illustrate the concept of DFR.

Atomic steps, a defect common to all crystal surfaces, can play an important role in many physical and chemical processes. However, attempts to predict surface dynamics under nonequilibrium conditions are usually frustrated by poor knowledge of the atomic processes of surface motion arising from mass transport from/to surface steps. Using low-energy electron microscopy that spatially and temporally resolves oxide film growth during the oxidation of NiAl(100) we demonstrate that surface steps are impermeable to oxide film growth. The advancement of the oxide occurs exclusively on the same terrace and requires the coordinated migration of surface steps. The resulting piling up of surface steps ahead of the oxide growth front progressively impedes the oxide growth. This process is reversed during oxide decomposition. The migration of the substrate steps is found to be a surface-step version of the well-known Hele-Shaw problem, governed by detachment (attachment) of Al atoms at step edges induced by the oxide growth (decomposition). By comparing with the oxidation of NiAl(110) that exhibits unimpeded oxide film growth over substrate steps we suggest that whenever steps are the source of atoms used for oxide growth they limit the oxidation process; when atoms are supplied from the bulk, the oxidation rate is not limited by the motion of surface steps.

Ballistic electron emission microscopy (BEEM) was employed to study metal/dielectric/semiconductor devices with high spatial resolution. A comprehensive study of the subthreshold characteristics of the BEEM spectra shows that the BEEM current in the subthreshold region decreases at a rate of ~60 mV/decade. A comparative BEEM study of Au/SiO2/n-Si devices with in-situ and ex-situ deposited metal suggests that an ultra¬¬clean metal surface is critical for the BEEM studies of the devices with high electron barriers. Investigation of the ultrathin native oxide and high-κ dielectrics shows that an ultrathin dielectric (probably no thicker than 6–8 Å) does not exhibit the same electronic properties as a thicker dielectric. Spatial non-uniformity of these oxides on the nanometer scale was also observed by BEEM. We also determined the electron barrier height for a few important dielectrics (oxidized GaAs, Al2O3 and HfO2) on GaAs. An analytical equation describing the subthreshold BEEM behavior is derived from the basic BEEM model, i.e., the Bell-Kaiser model. This analytical equation shows that the BEEM current in the subthreshold region decreases exponentially with a subthreshold swing of about 60 mV/decade as the tip bias decreases. The equation is further verified by simulated and experimental BEEM spectra. Realizing the subthreshold characteristics, a new simplified model was proposed for the BEEM spectrum fitting. This proposed model takes the subthreshold behavior into account and it is to the best of our knowledge the first simplified analytical BEEM model that considers the temperature dependence. This model is shown to significantly improve the fitting of the BEEM spectrum compared with using the well-known simplified square model. It also provides a quick method to estimate the BEEM current at and below the threshold. It is shown that the BEEM measurement of samples with high barriers (~3.0 eV or above), cannot be performed properly if the metal base electrode is deposited ex-situ, while it can be performed consistently if the metal is deposited in-situ in an ultra-high vacuum. We further show that the main reason is that contamination of the Au surface strongly affects the tunneling between the tip and Au base in the high bias range, thus affecting the BEEM spectroscopy. DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (EEE)

The effect of surface contamination on the electron tunneling in the high bias range is investigated from the perspective of ballistic electron emission microscopy (BEEM). A comparative BEEM study on the Au/SiO2/Si devices shows that there is a significant difference in the high bias range between the experiments performed with in situ and ex situ deposited Au. Detailed studies show that the difference arises from the contaminations during air exposure. These contaminations significantly accelerated the material transfer between the tip and the sample during tunneling and lead to the unreliability of BEEM studies in the high bias range on the ex situ prepared sample. Published Version

A systematic study on silicon native oxides grown in ambient air at room temperature is carried out using ballistic electron emission microscopy. The electronic barrier height of Au/native oxide was directly measured for native oxides at different oxidation stages. While the ballistic electron transmission decreases with increasing oxidation time, the electronic barrier height remains the same, even after oxidation for 1 week. After oxidation for 26 months, the oxide layer showed the bulk-like SiO2 barrier; however, some local areas still show the same barrier height as that of an Au/n-Si device. This demonstrates the non-uniformity of native oxide growth. Published version

The initial growth of ultrathin aluminum oxide film during the oxidation of NiAl(100) was studied with scanning tunneling microscopy. Our observations reveal that the oxide film grows initially as pairs of a double-row stripe structure with a lateral size equal to the unit cell of θ-Al2O3. These double-row stripes serve as the very basic stable building units of the ordered oxide phase for growing thicker bulk-oxide-like thin films. It is shown that the electronic properties of these ultrathin double-row stripes do not differ significantly from that of the clean NiAl surface; however, the thicker oxide stripes show a decreased conductivity.

We report upon a comprehensive investigation of the subthreshold characteristics of the ballistic electron emission microscopy (BEEM) current in ballistic electron emission spectroscopy. Starting from the Bell-Kaiser model, we derive an analytical equation to describe the subthreshold behavior of the BEEM current. It is found that the BEEM current in this region should exhibit a subthreshold swing of ∼60 mV/decade at room temperature, which we experimentally verified. This finding provides a rule of thumb for the detectability of the subthreshold behavior in a spectrum. For spectra where the subthreshold behavior is discernible above the signal noise, it is demonstrated that significant deviations in the near-threshold region can occur when fitting with a simple quadratic model that ignores the subthreshold behavior. To take the subthreshold behavior into account, a simple analytical model is proposed. This model not only fits significantly better in the near threshold region than the square model, but also gives a barrier height closer to the one extracted from the Bell-Kaiser model. More significantly, this model provides a quick method to estimate the subthreshold BEEM current amplitude based on the BEEM current above the barrier height. Published version