Materials

Optimised materials

Materials from the Royce Deposition System are available to academia and industry. The system is designed to be flexible, with different types of materials and a range of growth techniques, allowing us to build complex heterostructures with novel interfaces. Within the Condensed Matter Group we have a wealth of experience in thin film growth and dedicated experimental officers who can provide fully characterised samples.

Below are examples of thin film materials that have been optimised in the system.

Bismuth telluride

Epitaxial Bi2Te3 thin films grown by MBE in the Topological Materials chamber

Topological-organic interfaces

Epitaxial Bi2Se3/C60 grown by MBE in the Topological Materials and Organics chambers

Epitaxial platinum

Epitaxial Pt grown by e-beam evaporation in the Organics chamber

Fullerenes

Epitaxial Pt/C60, on a sapphire substrate, grown in the Organics chambers

Textured sputtered films

(111) textured Pt films grown in the Sputtering chamber

Strontium ruthenate

Expitaxial SrRuO3 grown in the Pulsed Laser Deposition chamber on a SrTiO3 substrate

Strontium titanate

Polycrystalline SrTiO3 grown in the Pulsed Laser Deposition chamber on a platinised glass substrate

Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy

Out-of-plane magnetic materials such as ultrathin magnetic trilayer Pt/Co/Pt, grown in the Sputtering chamber

Bismuth ferrite

Multiferroic BiFeO3 grown epitaxially by Pulsed Laser Deposition

Magnetic multilayers for skymionic devices

Sputtered [Pt/CoB/Ir]n multilayers with interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction

Epitaxial niobium

Sputtered niobium grown epitaxially on sapphire substrates

Superconducting and ferromagnetic devices

Hybrid superconductor-ferromagnet devices built from sputtered multilayers

Materials by chamber

Topological Materials MBE

Five effusion cells and two cracker cells are mounted on the chamber. The materials in the MBE cannot be changed regularly and the chamber is dedicated to deposition of topological insulators.

Effusion cells:
In, Ge, Se, Bi, Sn

Cracker cells:
Sb, Te

Pulsed Laser Deposition

The target stage can hold up to five targets at a time. The target stage can be loaded/unloaded through the load lock making it possible to change materials as needed.

Targets include:
SrTiO3, SrRuO3, BiFeO3, YIG, ITO

Sputtering

Seven magnetrons mounted confocally on the base and one off-axis magnetron is mounted at the side. Targets can be changed during routine maintenance (usually every 6-8 weeks).

Target include:
Au, Pt, Ir, Ru,
Nb, Ta,
Co, Co62B32, CoFe,
YIG

Organics

The chamber includes four low temperature effusion cells, an e-beam evaporator and a DC/RF magnetron sputter gun. Materials can be changed during routine maintenance (usually every 2-3 months).

Effusion cell:
MnPc, C60, H2Pc

E-beam evaporator:
Pt, Co, Py, Au

Sputter target:
Cu

Publications

Strain-coupled domains in BaTiO3(111)-CoFeB heterostructures

R. G. Hunt, K. J. A. Franke, P. M. Shepley, and T. A. Moore

Phys. Rev. B 107, 014409 (2023)

Open access version: arXiv:2210.01511

Effects of structural ordering on infrared active vibrations within Bi2(Te(1-x)Se(x))3

Craig S. Knox, Matthew T. Vaughan, Andrew D. Burnett, Mannan Ali, Satoshi Sasaki, Edmund H. Linfield, Alexander Giles Davies, and Joshua R. Freeman

Phys. Rev. B 106, 245203 (2022)

Observation of a molecular muonium polaron and its application to probing magnetic and electronic states

M. Rogers, T. Prokscha, G. Teobaldi, Leandro Liborio, S. Sturniolo, E. Poli, D. Jochym, R. Stewart, M. Flokstra, S. Lee, M. Ali, B. J. Hickey, T. Moorsom, and O. Cespedes

Phys. Rev. B 104, 064429 (2021)

Open access manuscript version

Pt and CoB trilayer Josephson π junctions with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy

N. Satchell, T. Mitchell, P. M. Shepley, E. Darwin, B. J. Hickey & G. Burnell

Scientific Reports volume 11, Article number: 11173 (2021)

Spin-valve Josephson junctions with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy for cryogenic memory

N. Satchell, P. M. Shepley, M. Algarni, M. Vaughan, E. Darwin, M. Ali, M. C. Rosamond, L. Chen, E. H. Linfield, B. J. Hickey, and G. Burnell

Appl. Phys. Lett. 116, 022601 (2020).

Open access version: eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/155064