Epitaxial antiperovskite/perovskite heterostructures for materials design

TL;DR

This paper reports the fabrication and atomic-scale analysis of epitaxial heterostructures between nitride antiperovskite Mn₃GaN and oxide perovskites, revealing a coherent interfacial layer that enables potential for advanced functional devices.

Contribution

It demonstrates the creation of atomically sharp epitaxial interfaces between antiperovskite and perovskite materials and elucidates the interfacial structure and bonding mechanisms.

Findings

Epitaxial growth is mediated by a coherent interfacial monolayer.

Atomic-scale structure and bonding at the interface are characterized.

Results pave the way for functional heterostructures with topological properties.

Abstract

We demonstrate fabrication of atomically sharp interfaces between nitride antiperovskite Mn$_{3}$GaN and oxide perovskites (La$_{0.3}$Sr$_{0.7}$)(Al$_{0.65}$Ta$_{0.35}$)O$_{3}$ (LSAT) and SrTiO$_{3}$ as paradigms of nitride-antiperovskite/oxide-perovskite heterostructures. Using a combination of scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), atomic-resolution spectroscopic techniques, and first-principle calculations, we investigated the atomic-scale structure, composition, and boding at the interface. We show that the epitaxial growth between the antiperovskite and perovskite compounds is mediated by a coherent interfacial monolayer that connects the two anti-structures. We anticipate our results to be a major step for the development of functional antiperovskite/perovskite heterostructures opening to harness a combination of their functional properties including topological properties for ultra low power applications.