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Title: Point group symmetry of cadmium arsenide thin films determined by convergent beam electron diffraction

Abstract

Cadmium arsenide (Cd3As2) is one of the first materials to be discovered to belong to the class of three-dimensional topological semimetals. Reported room-temperature crystal structures of Cd3As2 differ subtly in the way the Cd vacancies are arranged within its antifluorite-derived structure, which determines if an inversion center is present and if Cd3As2 is a Dirac or Weyl semimetal. Here, we apply convergent beam electron diffraction (CBED) to determine the point group of Cd3As2 thin films grown by molecular-beam epitaxy. Using CBED patterns from multiple zone axes, high-angle annular dark-field images acquired in scanning transmission electron microscopy, and Bloch wave simulations, we show that Cd3As2 belongs to the tetragonal 4/mmm point group, which is centrosymmetric. In conclusion, the results show that CBED can distinguish very subtle differences in the crystal structure of a topological semimetal, a capability that will be useful for designing materials and thin film heterostructures with topological states that depend on the presence of certain crystal symmetries.

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [1]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
  2. Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States). Frederick Seitz Materials Research Lab.
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division; USDOD; National Science Foundation (NSF)
OSTI Identifier:
1593379
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1558162
Grant/Contract Number:  
FG02-02ER45994; N00014-16-1-2814
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Physical Review Materials
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 3; Journal Issue: 8; Journal ID: ISSN 2475-9953
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE

Citation Formats

Kim, Honggyu, Goyal, Manik, Salmani-Rezaie, Salva, Schumann, Timo, Pardue, Tyler N., Zuo, Jian-Min, and Stemmer, Susanne. Point group symmetry of cadmium arsenide thin films determined by convergent beam electron diffraction. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.3.084202.
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Kim, Honggyu, Goyal, Manik, Salmani-Rezaie, Salva, Schumann, Timo, Pardue, Tyler N., Zuo, Jian-Min, & Stemmer, Susanne. Point group symmetry of cadmium arsenide thin films determined by convergent beam electron diffraction. United States. doi:10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.3.084202.
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Kim, Honggyu, Goyal, Manik, Salmani-Rezaie, Salva, Schumann, Timo, Pardue, Tyler N., Zuo, Jian-Min, and Stemmer, Susanne. Tue . "Point group symmetry of cadmium arsenide thin films determined by convergent beam electron diffraction". United States. doi:10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.3.084202. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1593379.
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@article{osti_1593379,
title = {Point group symmetry of cadmium arsenide thin films determined by convergent beam electron diffraction},
author = {Kim, Honggyu and Goyal, Manik and Salmani-Rezaie, Salva and Schumann, Timo and Pardue, Tyler N. and Zuo, Jian-Min and Stemmer, Susanne},
abstractNote = {Cadmium arsenide (Cd3As2) is one of the first materials to be discovered to belong to the class of three-dimensional topological semimetals. Reported room-temperature crystal structures of Cd3As2 differ subtly in the way the Cd vacancies are arranged within its antifluorite-derived structure, which determines if an inversion center is present and if Cd3As2 is a Dirac or Weyl semimetal. Here, we apply convergent beam electron diffraction (CBED) to determine the point group of Cd3As2 thin films grown by molecular-beam epitaxy. Using CBED patterns from multiple zone axes, high-angle annular dark-field images acquired in scanning transmission electron microscopy, and Bloch wave simulations, we show that Cd3As2 belongs to the tetragonal 4/mmm point group, which is centrosymmetric. In conclusion, the results show that CBED can distinguish very subtle differences in the crystal structure of a topological semimetal, a capability that will be useful for designing materials and thin film heterostructures with topological states that depend on the presence of certain crystal symmetries.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.3.084202},
journal = {Physical Review Materials},
number = 8,
volume = 3,
place = {United States},
year = {2019},
month = {8}
}
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DOI:  10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.3.084202
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