A materials science process where a thin, crystalline layer is grown on a crystalline substrate in a way that copies the atomic structure of the base crystal.
From Greek 'epi' (upon) and 'taxis' (arrangement/order), literally 'ordering upon.' The term was coined in the 20th century as materials science and semiconductor technology developed.
Epitaxy is why modern computer chips work at all—billions of transistors must be stacked in perfectly ordered crystal layers, and epitaxy lets physicists 'grow' these layers atom-by-atom with almost impossible precision, making our digital age possible.
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