Solid phase epitaxial regrowth of (001) anatase titanium dioxide

The growing interest in metal oxide based semiconductor technologies has driven the need to produce high quality epitaxial films of one metal oxide upon another. Largely unrecognized in synthetic efforts is that some metal oxides offer strongly polar surfaces and interfaces that require electrostatic stabilization to avoid a physically implausible divergence in the potential. The present work examines these issues for epitaxial growth of anatase TiO2 on strontium titanate (001). Solid phase epitaxial regrowth yields only the (001) facet, while direct crystalline growth by atomic layer deposition yields both the (112) and (001). The presence of amorphous TiO2 during regrowth may provide preferential stabilization for formation of the (001) facet. (C) 2016 American Vacuum Society.