Epitaxial growth of praseodymium oxide on silicon

Praseodymium oxide is a potential high-K dielectric with promising electric al properties. Here, we present results for crystalline growth of prascodym ium oxide on Si. On Si(001) surfaces, crystalline Pr2O3 grows as (110) doma ins, with two orthogonal in-plane orientations. Epitaxial silicon overgrowt h seems to be impossible. We obtain perfect epitaxial growth on Si(111). Th ese layers can also be overgrown epitaxially with silicon. All layer growth experiments were performed using solid source molecular beam epitaxy. In a ddition, the initial stages of growth were studied by scanning tunneling mi croscopy. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.