Iron oxide films, epitaxial

Voogt FC (1998) N02-assisted molecular beam epitaxy of iron oxide films. PHD Thesis, Rijkuniversiteit Gronigent, Groningen, The Netherlands... 

Other recent applications of ISS have included the study of thin Zr02 films [201 ], a comparison of various techniques for cleaning InP substrates before epitaxial growth [216], analysis of conversion coatings on aluminum alloys [217], and study of alkali-induced sintering of an iron oxide mono-layer on platinum [218]. 

Single-crystal studies show that the rate of oxidation varies with crystal face. The order was found to be polycrystalline > (110) > (112). Observations of the low-temperature oxide by electron diffraction were interpreted as epitaxial Fe304. Recently, XPS has been used to determine the composition of thin oxide films on iron [45-47]. 

Later the lattice parameter was emphasized as a casual factor [143]. A detailed rationalization of see was made for iron exposed to anhydrous ammonia-methanol, where anodic oxidation of ammonia leads to interstitial penetration of nitrogen [69,100]. According to the film-induced cleavage model, such very thin, brittle layers are sufficient to allow cleavage through several pm of a body-centered cubic (bcc) material, whereas in fee systems a nanoporous metallic layer lO-lOOnm thick is a specific requirement as it is the only way of epitaxially coupling a brittle reaction product of sufficient thickness to the fee substrate. A special case may be the SCC of pure copper or silver, where a micropitted or tunneled zone is a possible brittle layer that could nucleate cracking [144,145]. 

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