  Monatomic antimony thin films have recently attracted attention for
applications in phase change memory, nanophotonics, and 2D materials. Although
some promising results have been reported, the true potential of Sb thin films
is still hindered by the scalability issue and the lack of reliable bottom-up
production. Here we demonstrate the growth of Sb thin films on a
lattice-matching and amorphous substrates using pulsed laser deposition (PLD).
C-axis out-of-plane textured Sb thin films were successfully deposited on
Sb$_2$Te$_3$ and SiO$_2$\Si$_3$N$_4$ substrates. In the case of growth on
Sb$_2$Te$_3$, we show that an intermediate phase is formed at the
Sb$_2$Te$_3$-Sb interface playing a crucial role in forming a solid coupling
and thus maintaining epitaxy leading to the production of high-quality Sb thin
films. A 3 - 4 nm amorphous Sb seed layer was used to induce texture and
suitable surface termination for the growth of Sb thin films on amorphous
substrates. The deposition parameters were fine-tuned, and the growth was
monitored in situ by a Reflective High Energy Electron Diffraction (RHEED).
Scanning/Transmission Electron Microscopy (S/TEM) unveiled the local structure
of produced films showing the formation of $\beta$-phase Sb thin films. Our
results demonstrate the feasibility to produce very smooth high-quality
antimony thin films with uniform coverage, from few layers to large
thicknesses, using pulsed laser deposition. We believe the results of our work
on scalable and controllable Sb growth have the potential to open up research
on phase-change materials and optoelectronics research.
