Growth of the metastable zinc-blende MnTe films on highly dissimilar perovskite SrTiO3 (001) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy

The systematic growth dependent on the growth temperature and telluride and manganese flux ratio of MnTe films on perovskite SrTiO3 (001) is addressed in this article. Metastable zinc-blende (ZB) MnTe single crystal films with high-crystalline quality and atomically flat surfaces are epitaxially deposited abiding by a two-dimensional growth regime. Epitaxial relationships are summarized as: (111)ZB-MnTe || (002)STO and [110]ZB-MnTe || [010]STO, or equivalent directions. Finally, compliant epitaxial mechanism, i.e. the formation of an ultrathin compliment substrate revealed by the evolution of inter-atomic distances deduced from electron diffraction, X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy, is proposed to account for the growth of the ZB-MnTe films on SrTiO3(001).