van Ingen, Fastenau, and Mittemeijer Reply

Stoichiometry issues in pulsed-laser deposition of alloys grown from multicomponent targets

“…Substrate effects may include sputtering by the incident atoms [6], differences in the sticking coefficients of the species [2], or preferential evaporation from the substrate [7]. Since we are dealing with Si and Ge and our substrate remains at the ambient temperature, there should be no evaporation of either species.…”

Stoichiometry issues in pulsed-laser deposition of alloys grown from multicomponent targets

“…However, it is well known that such favorable results do not occur under all experimental conditions. Systems ranging from simple two-component metallic systems [2,3] and semiconductor systems [4], to more complicated superconducting oxides [5] and ferroelectrics [6] have shown non-stoichiometric transfer of the target composition. The majority of the literature focuses on techniques to overcome this obstacle.…”

Formation of Sm(Co1–xNix)5epitaxial thin films on Cu(111) underlayers

“…In-situ observations revealed the crystallographic property during film formation. In the present study, Sm 17 (Co,Ni) 83 and Sm 17 Ni 83 (at. %) films are deposited on Cu(111) underlayers in addition to Sm 17 Co 83 films.…”

“…In the present study, Sm 17 (Co,Ni) 83 and Sm 17 Ni 83 (at. %) films are deposited on Cu(111) underlayers in addition to Sm 17 Co 83 films. The effects of Ni/Co composition and substrate temperature on the ordered phase formation are investigated.…”

“…Figures 1(a-1)-(d-1) 17 Ni 83 variants with respect to Cu underlayer are -2.5%, -2.8%, -3.4%, and -3.6%, while those of B-type variants are +12.5%, +12.3%, +11.5%, and +11.3%. Here, the lattice constants of bulk SmCo 5 (a SmCo5 = 0.4982 nm [15]), SmNi 5 (a SmNi5 = 0.4926 nm [16]), and Cu (a Cu = 0.3615 nm [17]) crystals and the lattice constants of a SmCo4Ni (= 0.8a SmCo5 +0.2a SmNi5 ) and a SmCoNi4 (= 0.2a SmCo5 +0.8a SmNi5 ), which are estimated by using the lattice constants of a SmCo5 and a SmNi5 , are used. Although there are fairly large mismatches in the cases of B-type variants, epitaxial growth is taking place.…”