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In epitaxial growth of a quintuple-layered <jats:inline-formula><jats:alternatives><jats:tex-math>$${{\\rm{Bi}}}_{2}{{\\rm{Se}}}_{3}$$<\/jats:tex-math><mml:math xmlns:mml=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1998\/Math\/MathML\"><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mi>Bi<\/mml:mi><\/mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>2<\/mml:mn><\/mml:mrow><\/mml:msub><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mi>Se<\/mml:mi><\/mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>3<\/mml:mn><\/mml:mrow><\/mml:msub><\/mml:mrow><\/mml:math><\/jats:alternatives><\/jats:inline-formula> film, we observe that the multilayer growth pattern deduced from in situ x-ray diffraction implies nontrivial interlayer diffusion process. Here we find that an intriguing diffusion process occurs at step edges where a slowly downward-diffusing Se adatom having a high step-edge barrier interacts with a Bi adatom pre-existing at step edges. The Se\u2013Bi interaction lowers the high step-edge barrier of Se adatoms. This drastic reduction of the overall step-edge barrier and hence increased interlayer diffusion modifies the overall growth significantly. Thus, a step-edge barrier reduction mechanism assisted by hetero adatom\u2013adatom interaction could be fairly general in multilayer growth of 2D heteroatomic materials.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1038\/s41699-019-0134-2","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2019,12,20]],"date-time":"2019-12-20T11:03:50Z","timestamp":1576839830000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Signature of multilayer growth of 2D layered Bi2Se3 through heteroatom-assisted step-edge barrier reduction"],"prefix":"10.1038","volume":"3","author":[{"given":"Yongsam","family":"Kim","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2477-9990","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Geunsik","family":"Lee","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Nannan","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Jikeun","family":"Seo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Kwang S.","family":"Kim","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Namdong","family":"Kim","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,12,20]]},"reference":[{"key":"134_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"399","DOI":"10.1088\/0034-4885\/47\/4\/002","volume":"47","author":"JA Venables","year":"1984","unstructured":"Venables, J. 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