Contacts

Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies

Helping you understand, create, and characterize nanomaterials

Crystal Growth of Strongly Correlated Materials

Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) enables the growth of complex nanostructures based on the III-V and III-nitride (AlGaInN) semiconductor materials systems, including nanowires (NWs) and quantum dots (QDs)

Quantum materials with strong electron-electron interactions offer a powerful platform for the
study of emergent phenomena in the nanoscale that can be utilized in technological applications ranging from spintronics to quantum computing. The design, discovery, and optimization of quantum materials plays a central role in materials research, and requires the synthesis of high-quality single-crystalline samples.

To evaluate the crystallinity, phase purity, and structural parameters of our single crystals, we perform structural characterization through in-house powder x-ray diffraction (PANalytical Empyrean), single crystal x-ray diffraction (Bruker D8 Venture), and Laue back-scattering diffraction (Photonic Science).

Capabilities include:

Flux growth (I) — Single crystals are grown from a high-temperature solution of elements wherein a relatively low-melting point element is used as a solvent (or flux).
Chemical vapor transport growth (II) — Single crystals are grown in quartz ampoules subjected to a temperature gradient. In a typical endothermic reaction, the source material is transported from the hot end of the ampoule by a transport agent (e.g. iodine), and crystals precipitate in the cold end (sink).
Czochralski growth (III) — Starting from a seed crystal, a single-crystalline ingot is pulled from a stoichiometric melt that is close to thermodynamic equilibrium with the seed material.
Bridgman growth (III) — A single-crystalline ingot is obtained by solidification from a stoichiometric melt subjected to a temperature gradient.

Contact: Priscila Rosa

Research highlights:
Robust Narrow-Gap Semiconducting Behavior in Square-Net La3CD2as6
Piva, M. M.; Rahn, M. C.; Thomas, S. M.; Scott, B. L; Pagliuso, P. G.; Thompson, J. D.; Schoop, L. M.; Ronning, F.; Rosa, P. F. Chemistry of Materials 2021, 33, no. 11, 4122–27. doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.1c00797

Fingerprinting Triangular-Lattice Antiferromagnet by Excitation Gaps
Avers, K. E.; Maksimov, P. A.; Rosa, P. F. S.; Thomas, S. M.; Thompson, J. D.; Halperin, W. P.; Movshovich, R.; Chernyshev, A. L. Physical Review B. American Physical Society 2021, doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.103.L180406