A structural analysis of ordered Cs$_{3}$Sb films grown on single crystal graphene and silicon carbide substrates

TL;DR

This study demonstrates the growth of ordered Cs₃Sb films on specific substrates using laser and thermal evaporation techniques, revealing structural features that could enhance electron beam brightness in photonic applications.

Contribution

It introduces a method to grow ordered Cs₃Sb films on single crystal substrates, providing detailed structural analysis and insights for future epitaxial heterostructure development.

Findings

Ordered domains in films less than 10 nm thick with >1% quantum efficiency

Observation of Laue oscillations indicating high order

Cs₃Sb films exhibit flat, fiber-textured surfaces and sub-nanometer roughness

Abstract

Alkali antimonides are well established as high efficiency, low intrinsic emittance photocathodes for accelerators and photon detectors. However, conventionally grown alkali antimonide films are polycrystalline with surface disorder and roughness that can limit achievable beam brightness. Ordering the crystalline structure of alkali antimonides has the potential to deliver higher brightness electron beams by reducing surface disorder and enabling the engineering of material properties at the level of atomic layers. In this report, we demonstrate the growth of ordered Cs$_{3}$Sb films on single crystal substrates 3C-SiC and graphene-coated 4H-SiC using pulsed laser deposition and conventional thermal evaporation growth techniques. The crystalline structures of the Cs$_{3}$Sb films were examined using reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) diagnostics, while film thickness and roughness estimates were made using x-ray reflectivity (XRR). With these tools, we observed ordered domains in less than 10 nm thick films with quantum efficiencies greater than one percent at 530 nm. Moreover, we identify structural features such as Laue oscillations indicative of highly ordered films. We found that Cs$_{3}$Sb films grew with flat, fiber-textured surfaces on 3C-SiC and with multiple ordered domains and sub-nanometer surface roughness on graphene-coated 4H-SiC under our growth conditions. We identify the crystallographic orientations of Cs$_{3}$Sb grown on graphene-coated 4H-SiC substrates and discuss the significance of examining the crystal structure of these films for growing epitaxial heterostructures in future experiments.