Band gap in epitaxial NaCl-structure CrN(001) layers

B1–NaCl-structure CrN(001) layers were grown on MgO(001) at 600 °C by ultrahigh vacuum reactive magnetron sputter deposition in pure N2 discharges. X-ray diffraction analyses establish the epitaxial relationship as cube-on-cube, (001)CrN∥(001)MgO with [100]CrN∥[100]MgO, while temperature-dependent measurements show that the previously reported phase transition to the orthorhombic Pnma structure is, due to epitaxial constraints, absent in our layers. The resistivity increases with decreasing temperature, from 0.028 Ω cm at 400 K to 271 Ω cm at 20 K, indicating semiconducting behavior with hopping conduction. Optical absorption is low (α