Nitride materials feature strong chemical bonding character that leads to unique crystal structures, but many ternary nitride chemical spaces remain experimentally unexplored. The search for previously undiscovered ternary nitrides is also an opportunity to explore unique materials properties, such as transitions between cation-ordered and -disordered structures, as well as to identify candidate materials for optoelectronic applications. Here, we present a comprehensive experimental study of MgSnN2, an emerging II–IV–N2 compound, for the first time mapping phase composition and crystal structure, and examining its optoelectronic properties computationally and experimentally. We demonstrate combinatorial cosputtering of cation-disordered, wurtzite-type MgSnN2 across a range of cation compositions and temperatures, as well as the unexpected formation of a secondary, rocksalt-type phase of MgSnN2 at Mg-rich compositions and low temperatures. A computational structure search shows that the rocksalt-type phase is substantially metastable (>70 meV/atom) compared to the wurtzite-type ground state. Spectroscopic ellipsometry reveals optical absorption onsets around 2 eV, consistent with band gap tuning via cation disorder. Finally, we demonstrate epitaxial growth of a mixed wurtzite-rocksalt MgSnN2 on GaN, highlighting an opportunity for polymorphic control via epitaxy. Collectively, these findings lay the groundwork for further exploration of MgSnN2 as a model ternary nitride, with controlled polymorphism, and for device applications, enabled by control of optoelectronic properties via cation ordering.

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Piezoelectric materials are commonplace in modern devices, and the prevalence of these materials is poised to increase in the years to come. The majority of known piezoelectrics are oxide materials, due in part to the related themes of a legacy of ceramists building off of mineralogical crystallography and the relative simplicity of fabricating oxide specimens. However, diversification beyond oxides offers exciting opportunities to identify and develop new materials perhaps better suited for certain applications. Aluminum nitride (and recently, its Sc-modified derivative) is the only commercially integrated piezoelectric nitride in use today, although this is likely to change in the near future with increased use of high-throughput techniques for materials discovery and development. This review covers modern methods—both computational and experimental—that have been developed to explore chemical space for new materials with targeted characteristics. Here, the authors focus on the application of computational and high-throughput experimental approaches to discovering and optimizing piezoelectric nitride materials. While the focus of this review is on the search for and development of new piezoelectric nitrides, most of the research approaches discussed in this article are both chemistry- and application-agnostic.