Crystal Structure and Atomic Arrangement of δ-Phase Sb–Te Binary Alloy

Abstract

The composition modulated Sb–Te binary thin films deposited by a RF sputtering method on SiO 2 /Si substrates annealed through a rapid thermal annealing process and conducted a high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) study in order to investigate the atomic arrangement of the δ-phase Sb–Te binary alloys which contain Te from 16 to 37 at. %. Through the comparison with HR-TEM image and diffraction patterns viewed along <2110> and <1010> direction, we have revealed that the δ-phase Sb–Te alloy crystallized into P 3 m 1 or R 3 m space group whether the number of layers is the multiple of three or not. We also expect from analogous Bi–Te system in earlier reports that as the Sb/Te ratio increases, total number of Sb layers in a unit cell increases. Therefore, based on above result, we suggested the atomic arrangement model composed of appropriate Sb 2 and Sb 2 Te 3 layer and obtained simulated images of <2110> zone axis.