Study on Interfacial Properties of SrTiO3/Ge Heterostructures Published in Applied Physics Letters

Our collaborative paper led by Dr. Scott Chambers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory studying the electronic band alignment and interfacial behavior at the epitaxial SrTiO3/p-Ge interface has been published in Applied Physics Letters. Using molecular beam epitaxy of SrTiO3 was grown on a p-doped Ge substrate and characterized using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning transmission electron microscopy. Because STO is naturally n-type and Ge is doped p-type, this creates a pn junction that can be used for visible light photocatalysis. The STO layer may provide chemical protection for the Ge substrate, which has a small enough band gap to absorb all wavelengths of visible light.