Epitaxial europium oxide on Ni(100) with single-crystal quality

International audienceHigh quality epitaxy of EuO on Ni(100) is developed in an in situ scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and low-energy electron diffraction (LEED) study. A careful selection of the initial growth parameters is decisive to obtain a surface oxide suitable for the subsequent epitaxy of single phase EuO(100). After the creation of a three layer thick coalesced oxide film for the subsequent growth a distillation technique is applied. Appropriate annealing of films with up to 100 nm thickness generates sufficient conductivity for STM and electron spectroscopies. Oxygen vacancies are directly imaged by STM. They are of decisive importance for the metal-to-insulator transition around the temperature of the ferromagnetic-to-paramagnetic transition. A fast relaxation of the initial biaxial strain observed by LEED leaves little hope for an increase of the Curie temperature through epitaxial compression. Ex situ x-ray adsorption spectroscopy and magneto-optical Kerr effect microscopy measurements of thicker films are consistent with the stoichiometric single phase EuO with bulk properties