Formation of epitaxial strontium oxide and silicate on silicon (001)

Molecular Beam Epitaxy was used to grow thin epitaxial SrO layers on Si(001). Such thin layers might act as a good template for the integration of epitaxial functional oxides with Si. Conditions for achieving well controlled interfacial properties were investigated as a function of growth temperature. Our results have shown that the growth of an epitaxial SrO film of good crystalline quality and the formation of a sharp interface were possible at low growth temperature. The behavior was quite different for a growth at high temperature where the formation of a silicate was observed.