Fabrication of single-crystalline insulator/Si/insulator double-barrier nanostructure using cooperative vapor–solid-phase epitaxy

Single-crystalline double-barrier Gd2O3/Si/Gd2O3 nanostructures on Si(1 1 1) were prepared using molecular beam epitaxy. Ultra-thin single-crystalline Si buried in a single-crystalline insulator matrix with sharp interfaces was obtained by a novel approach based on an epitaxial encapsulated solid-phase epitaxy. The I–V characteristic of the obtained nanostructures exhibited resonant tunneling at low temperatures.