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Growth of Thin Cadmium Arsenide Films by Magnetron Sputtering and Their Structure

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Inorganic Materials Aims and scope

Abstract—

Thin (~50 nm) cadmium arsenide films have been grown by magnetron sputtering on single-crystal silicon and sapphire substrates. Using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and Raman spectroscopy, the composition of the films has been shown to correspond to the Cd3As2 stoichiometry. Along with the α-Cd3As2 phase, the films contained trace levels of the α'-Cd3As2 phase. Annealing at 520 K led to recrystallization and the formation of [112] textured films on single-crystal silicon substrates. In the annealed films, the crystallite size evaluated using the Debye–Scherrer equation was ~30 nm.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (grant no. 17-12-01345). The structural investigation was supported by the Russian Federation Ministry of Science and Higher Education (state research target for the Kurnakov Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, in the field of basic research) and in part by the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences (program no. I.35: Scientific Principles of Producing Novel Functional Materials) and the Russian Federation Ministry of Science and Higher Education (grant. no. 16.2814.2017/PCh).

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Correspondence to A. I. Ril’.

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Kochura, A.V., Zakhvalinskii, V.S., Htet, A.Z. et al. Growth of Thin Cadmium Arsenide Films by Magnetron Sputtering and Their Structure. Inorg Mater 55, 879–886 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1134/S002016851909005X

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