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Molecular beam epitaxy growth of nonmagnetic Weyl semimetal LaAlGe thin film

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Abstract

Here, the authors report a detailed method of growing LaAlGe, a nonmagnetic Weyl semimetal, thin film on silicon(100) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy and their structural and electrical characterizations. About 50-nm-thick LaAlGe films were deposited and annealed for 16 h in situ at a temperature of 793 K. As-grown high-quality films showed uniform surface topography and near ideal stoichiometry with a body-centered tetragonal crystal structure. Temperature-dependent longitudinal resistivity can be understood with dominant interband s-d electron-phonon scattering in the temperature range of 5-40 K. Hall measurements confirmed the semimetallic nature of the films with an electron-dominated charge carrier density of ~7.15 × 1021 cm−3 at 5 K.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank The Vitreous State Laboratory for its financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, 20064, USA

    Niraj Bhattarai, Andrew W. Forbes, Ian L. Pegg & John Philip

  2. Vitreous State Laboratory, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, 20064, USA

    Niraj Bhattarai, Andrew W. Forbes, Ian L. Pegg & John Philip

  3. Institute for Quantum Physics, Advanced Physics Laboratory, Chapman University, MD, 20866, USA

    Rajendra P. Dulal

Authors
  1. Niraj Bhattarai
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  2. Andrew W. Forbes
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  3. Rajendra P. Dulal
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  4. Ian L. Pegg
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Correspondence to Niraj Bhattarai.

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The supplementary material for this article can be found at {rs|https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2020.28|url|}.

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Bhattarai, N., Forbes, A.W., Dulal, R.P. et al. Molecular beam epitaxy growth of nonmagnetic Weyl semimetal LaAlGe thin film. MRS Communications 10, 272–277 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2020.28

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