title: Self-Organized Epitaxial Vertically Aligned Nanocomposites with Long-Range Ordering Enabled by Substrate Nanotemplating.
abstract: Vertically aligned nanocomposites (VAN) thin films present as an intriguing material family for achieving novel functionalities. However, most of the VAN structures tend to grow in a random fashion, hindering the future integration in nanoscale devices. Previous efforts for achieving ordered nanopillar structures have been focused on specific systems, and rely on sophisticated lithography and seeding techniques, making large area ordering quite difficult. In this work, a new technique is presented to produce self-assembled nanocomposites with long-range ordering through selective nucleation of nanocomposites on termination patterned substrates. Specifically, SrTiO3(001) substrates have been annealed to achieve alternating chemical terminations and thus enable selective epitaxy during the VAN growth. La0.7Sr0.3MnO3:CeO2(LSMO):CeO2nanocomposites, as a prototype, are demonstrated to form well-ordered rows in matrix structure, with CeO2(011) domains selectively grown on SrO terminated area, showing enhanced functionality. This approach provides a large degree of long-range ordering for nanocomposite growth that could lead to unique functionalities and takes the nanocomposites one step closer toward future nanoscale device integration.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA.
authors.forename: Meng
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA.
authors.forename: Bruce
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA.
authors.forename: Han
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jian
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA.
authors.forename: Xing
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA.
authors.forename: Jijie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA.
authors.forename: Leigang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA.
authors.forename: Xinghang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA.|School of Materials Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA.|Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA.
authors.forename: Haiyan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
keywords: LSMO:CeO2; directed self-assembly; long-range ordering; substrate treatment; vertically aligned nanocomposites