Cubic-to-monoclinic phase transition during the epitaxial growth of crystalline Gd2O3 films on Ge(001) substrates

Thin crystalline films of Gd2O3 are grown on an atomically flat Ge(001) surface by molecular beam epitaxy and are characterized in situ by reflection high energy electron diffraction and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and ex situ by x-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and transmission electron microscopy. The first stage of the growth corresponds to a cubic (110) structure, with two equiprobable, 90° rotated, in-plane domains. Increasing the thickness of the films, a phase transition from cubic (110) to monoclinic (100) oriented crystallites is observed which keeps the in-plane domain rotation, as evidenced by XRD and AFM.