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Understanding growth mechanisms of epitaxial manganese oxide (Mn3O4) nanostructures on strontium titanate (STO) oxide substrates

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Abstract

The role of substrate orientation on interface registry and nanocrystal shape has been investigated for epitaxial manganese oxide (Mn3O4) nanocrystals. Mn3O4 (101) nanoplatelets and (112)-orientated nanowires have been successfully deposited on (111) and (110) SrTiO3 (STO) substrates, respectively. Under higher magnifications, the (101) platelets were found to exhibit step-like growth, spiraling outward from a local dislocation site at the Mn3O4–STO interface. Selected area electron diffraction analysis from transmission electron microscope (TEM) was carried out to determine the in-plane edge directionalities of (101) and (112) Mn3O4. We found the (101) Mn3O4 orientation to exhibit a complex in-plane epitaxial relation of [231̄]Mn3O4//[100]STO and an out-of-plane relation of [1̄01]Mn3O4//[1̄11]STO. Furthermore, lattice misorientations of 58° in-plane and 35° out-of-plane have been calculated, attributed to the shear caused by the spiral growth. For the (112) Mn3O4 nanowires, the TEM diffraction pattern indicates pyramidal cross-sections based along [011̄]STO. Subsequent calculations reveal that the (112) nanowires have their long axis (c-axis) such that [001]Mn3O4//[110]STO. Thus the nanowires grow preferentially along its longest axis giving rise to the observed shape and anisotropic nature.

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Acknowledgments

The TEM data were acquired at Australian Centre for Microscopy & Microanalysis (ACMM) in Sydney University, Australia. The authors specially thank Dr. Hongwei Liu for technical support and Mr. Henry Liu for the crystal structure graphics shown in S1. Research carried out in part at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, Brookhaven National Laboratory, which is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. DE-AC02-98CH10886.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052, Australia

    Jia Yin Liu, Xuan Cheng & Valanoor Nagarajan

  2. Brookhaven National Laboratory, Center for Functional Nanomaterials, Upton, New York, 11973, USA

    Huo Lin Xin

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  1. Jia Yin Liu
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  2. Xuan Cheng
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  3. Valanoor Nagarajan
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  4. Huo Lin Xin
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Correspondence to Valanoor Nagarajan.

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Liu, J.Y., Cheng, X., Nagarajan, V. et al. Understanding growth mechanisms of epitaxial manganese oxide (Mn3O4) nanostructures on strontium titanate (STO) oxide substrates. MRS Communications 5, 277–284 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2015.12

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