Molecular beam epitaxy growth of nonmagnetic Weyl semimetal LaAlGe thin film

Abstract

Here, we report a detailed method of growing LaAlGe, a non-magnetic Weyl semimetal, thin film on silicon(100) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy and their structural and electrical characterizations. 50 nm thick LaAlGe films were deposited and annealed for 16 hours in situ at a temperature 793 K. As-grown high-quality films showed uniform surface topography and near ideal stoichiometry with a body-centered tetragonal crystal structure. Temperature-dependent longitudinal resistivity can be understood with dominant interband s-d electron-phonon scattering in the temperature range 5-40 K. Hall measurements confirmed the semimetallic nature of the films with electron dominated charge carrier density near 7.15*10^21 cm^-3 at 5 K.