Epitaxial growth of bcc-Eu/Yb superlattices

A bcc-Eu metal layer having a double-domain structure was grown by the molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) technique on a cleaved NaCl (100) surface with the epitaxial relationship that Eu (110) [100] or [110] is parallel to NaCl (100) [100]. An Eu/Yb superlattice was successfully prepared by MBE on this Eu buffer layer at a growth temperature of 260 K. The Yb layers in the prepared superlattices were found to be in the bcc phase which is stable only at high temperatures above 1071 K. It was also shown that a bcc-Yb can be epitaxially grown on the bcc-Eu layer up to a thickness of 1500 A