Metal Epitaxy: A success story of the last 30 years
Prof. Dr. Hartmut Zabel (Experimentalphysik/Festkörperphysik, Ruhr-Universität Bochum)

Following the unprecedented success of semiconductor epitaxial growth techniques starting in the 70ies, with some delay metal epitaxy was developed in the early 80ies, paving the way to new physics and technologies that is characterized by confinement, scaling, and proximity. I will sketch the path from the early beginnings, concerned with the control and perfection of films and interfaces, up to present day issues ranging from rare earth magnetism, interlayer exchange coupling, to proximity effects between ferromagnetic and superconducting layers. While these examples rely on the artificial stacking of different materials on top of each other, forming various heterostructures or superlattices in the perpendicular direction, this field has moved on by implementing, in addition, techniques for fabricating artificial nanostructures also in the lateral direction. This lateral confinement is particularly important for fundamental investigations and applications in field of spintronics.