Growth and epitaxy of oxide thin films from conventional to van der Waals epitaxy

In this thesis, the aim is to understand mechanisms behind epitaxial growth, control the crystallinity and properties of grown films, and differentiate between two types of epitaxy: conventional epitaxy, driven by strong chemical bonds between the film and substrate, and van der Waals epitaxy (vdWE), characterized by weaker van der Waals forces, enabling stress-free growth without strict lattice matching. I investigated the epitaxial growth of transition metal oxides and nitrides (NiO, CrN, MoOx (x = 2, 3)) thin films synthesized by reactive magnetron sputtering on various substrates, including silicon, sapphire (c-plane and r-plane) and mica.