Article
Article
Epitaxial structures
Article By:
Rajan, Krishna Materials Engineering Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.
Last reviewed:January 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.757508
Epitaxial interfaces in solids are a special class of crystalline interfaces where the molecular arrangement of one crystal on top of another is defined by the crystallographic and chemical features of the underlying crystal. Royer (1928) systematically showed how the geometry of the atomic arrangement on a substrate could affect the crystallographic orientation of the overgrowth. The term “epitaxy” was introduced to describe the importance of having parallelism between two lattice planes with similar networks of closely similar spacing. Epitaxial phenomena are important to study and understand, as they occur widely in nature (such as oxidation) and are the foundation by which modern semiconductor devices are grown and fabricated. See also: Crystal growth
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