Molecular beam epitaxy and band structures of type-II antiferromagnetic semiconductor EuTe thin films

Abstract

The rare-earth Eu-based compounds with a unique half-filled 4f orbital have attracted an amount of research interest recently. Here, we synthesized EuTe(001) single-crystal thin films on SrTiO3(001) substrate via molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). The scanning tunneling microscopy and x-ray diffraction results indicate that the grown EuTe thin films orientated as EuTe[100]//SrTiO3[110] in plane. In the angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopic (ARPES) measurements, the grown EuTe films show a semiconductive band structure with the valence band maximum lying on the center point of the Brillouin zone. The bandgap size of EuTe was further identified by the optical transmission spectra as 2.2 eV. The antiferromagnetic transition temperature of the grown EuTe film is 10.5 K measured by a superconductive quantum interference device (SQUID). Our results provide important information on the fundamental electronic structures for the further research and applications of the Eu-based compounds.