Atomic layer epitaxy of CdTe, MgTe and MnTe; growth of CdTe/MnTe tilted superlattices on vicinal surfaces

Atomic layer epitaxy (ALE) is investigated for binary semiconductors of the telluride family, namely CdTe, MgTe and MnTe. Thanks to a systematic reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) study, an autoregulated growth at 0.5 monolayer/ALE cycle is obtained for CdTe in a substrate temperature range between 260°C and 290°C. RHEED studies on MgTe ALE, together with X-ray diffraction experiments on ALE grown CdTe/MgTe superlattices, reveal that an autoregulated growth at 0.7±0.1 MgTe monolayer/ALE cycle can be achieved in a substrate temperature range between 260 and 300°C. For MnTe, all deposited Mn atoms get incorporated, so that no autoregulated growth can be achieved, as illustrated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) data on ALE grown CdTe/MnTe superlattices. Finally, all this know-how is used to epitaxy CdTe/MnTe tilted superlattices onto (001) CdZnTe vicinal surfaces.