Spontaneous ordering, strain control and mutlifunctionality in vertical nanocomposite heteroepitaxial films

Two-phase nanocomposite heteroepitaxial films with vertical microstructures hold great promise for various (multi)functional (e.g. multiferroic) electronic device applications. With the aim of creating addressable arrays, it is necesary to form spontaneously ordered structures over large areas. However, such structures have not, so far, been demonstrated. We have recently shown remarkable spontaneously ordered phase assemblies and find that these structures form concomitantly with two-dimensional vertical strain control, i.e. strain in the two phases is controlled along the vertical interface between them rather than being influenced by the substrate [1]. In this extended abstract we report briefly on our findings.