Thermal Stability Of Epitaxial Fe Films Grown On Si Substrate By Molecular Beam Epitaxy

Molecular Beam Epitaxy(MBE) is one of several methods of depositing single crystals. It is particularly advanced for making semiconductor crystals from compounds based on elements in groups Ⅲ-Ⅴ of the periodic table. In addition, MBE is used to fabricate the materials of spintronics, photoelectric and metal thin films. Lately, it is also a facilitating device to realize the basic theory of growth kinetics, surface and interface physics etc. Regarding the importance of MBE, the physical school of Lanzhou university has established MBE laboratory in order to explore ferromagnetic films, interface between metal films and substract. During the setting of MBE, I got the chance to participate in the works of debugging and enabling of it and grow Fe films on Si(111) with a pure single orientation relationship.Epitaxial Fe films are grown on Si(001) and Si(111) substrates by MBE at room temperature. Several samples of one Fe/Si structure are subjected to rapid thermal annealing from100to500℃. The annealing impact on the morphological, magnetic properties and interfacial heterostructures of these samples is examined by atomic force microscopy, vibrating sample magnetometer and trans-mission electron microscopy, respectively. The results demonstrate that the material system Fe/Si grown at room temperature exhibits an abrupt interface and is thermally stable up to a temperature of150℃.