Synthesis of epitaxial LuN films

Epitaxy of rare-earth nitride films are crucial for studying their physical properties and offer significant potential for applications in spintronics and optoelectronics. However, synthesizing single-crystalline LuN presents significant challenges, leading to a limited understanding of its properties. In this study, we successfully achieved the epitaxial growth of (001)-oriented LuN films on YAlO₃ (110) substrates by reactive magnetron sputtering epitaxy. Electrical transport measurement at low temperatures reveals that the LuN film exhibits semiconducting behavior between 300 K and 2 K, with an activation energy of approximately 0.01 eV. Notably, negative magnetoresistance was observed below 12 K, which can result from the defects and magnetic impurities in LuN films. Our results uncover the electronic and magnetic properties of epitaxial LuN films.