journal article·2024-06-01Open access

Growth of ultra-flat ultra-thin alkali antimonide photocathode films

W. G. Stam, M. Gaowei, E. M. Echeverria, Kenneth Evans-Lutterodt, Jean Jordan-Sweet, T. Juffmann, S. Karkare, J. Maxson, S. J. van der Molen, C. Pennington, P. Saha, J. Smedley, R. M. Tromp

APL Materials· Volume 12· Issue 6

Abstract

Ultra-flat, ultra-thin alkali antimonide photocathodes with high crystallinity can exhibit high quantum efficiency and low mean transverse energy of outgoing electrons, which are essential requirements for a variety of applications for photocathode materials. Here, we investigate the growth of Cs3Sb on graphene-coated 4H–SiC (Gr/4H–SiC), 3C–SiC, and Si3N4 substrates. Sb is deposited using pulsed laser deposition, while Cs is deposited thermally and simultaneously. We demonstrate, employing x-ray analysis and quantum efficiency measurements, that this growth method yields atomically smooth Cs3Sb photocathodes with a high quantum efficiency (>10%), even in the ultra-thin limit (<30 nm). For the Si3N4 substrate, film growth is shown to be polycrystalline, while films grown on Gr/4H–SiC show a high degree of ordering with signs of epitaxy.
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Research context

OpenAlex topics: Ga2O3 and related materials · Semiconductor materials and devices · Advanced Electron Microscopy Techniques and Applications

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

Leiden Institute of Physics 1 , Niels Bohrweg 2, Leiden, The Netherlands

Brookhaven National Laboratory 2 , Upton, New York 11973-5000, USA

Cornell University Laboratory for Accelerator-Based Sciences and Education 3 , Ithaca, New York 14853, USA

IBM T. J. Watson Research Center 4 , Yorktown Heights, New.York 10598, USA

University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics, VCQ 5 , A-1090 Vienna, Austria

University of Vienna, Max Perutz Laboratories, Department of Structural and Computational Biology 6 , A-1030 Vienna, Austria

Arizona State University 7 , Tempe, Arizona 85287, USA

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory 8 , Menlo Park, California 94025, USA

Funding

H2020 Future and Emerging Technologies · U.S. Department of Energy

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