Vapour phase epitaxy of Cu2O on a-plane Al2O3

We present a vapour phase based approach for the epitaxial growth of Cu2O with the utilization of elemental copper and oxygen as precursor materials. At present the implementation of MOCVD approach is hampered by the absence of the chemical source of Cu with high enough vapour pressure at reasonable temperatures. Moreover, the use of elemental precursors has the advantage of less impurity incorporation during growth opposed to chemical vapour based growth methods. The influence of pro-cess parameters on the growth is discussed. High resolution X-ray diffraction measurements reveal the growth of mainly the two (002) and (220) Cu2O orientations. Precise control of the growth parameters provides the reproducible growth of pure Cu2O phase without additional CuO formation. Epitaxial growth of Cu2O is demonstrated on a-plane Al2O3 in the temperature range of 730 degrees C-870 degrees C. (C) 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim