Despliegue de la función de calidad (QFD)

As outlined previously, TEM studies of MnSb films show the presence of three crystal structures: cubic (c-MnSb), wurtzite (w-MnSb) and (n-MnSb) and the experi- mentally determined lattice parameters are given in Table 4.1. Note that the cubic phase was determined to be the zincblende structure from HRTEM although it is referred to as the cubic phase for simplicity. An initial study of the behaviour of the structural parameters of these polymorphs concluded that there were no obvious trends relating to JSb/Mn [34]. Although the presence of strained c-MnSb crystallites was determined

from this data, the low intensities and absent higher order reflections precluded a more detailed analysis of the polymorph. Equally, the wurtzite polymorph was seen to be entirely absent in the majority of samples and, where present, the observed peaks were of low intensity. To this end, high resolution XRD (HRXRD) has been performed on beamline X22C at the NSLS to exploit the increased intensity available from this source.

n -Mn Sb (1 1 0 1 ) n -Mn Sb (2 2 0 2 ) * *

Figure 4.5: Symmetric XRD data for a nominally 180 nm thick MnSb film grown using a Jcorr value

of 7.05. Reflections originating from GaAs, n-MnSb, c-MnSb and w-MnSb/GaSb are all identified, in addition two reflections arising from MnSb(1101) crystallites are observed. Reflections marked by∗are unidentified and their origin is unknown.

Typical symmetric synchrotron HRXRD data for a 180 nm thick MnSb sample is shown in Figure 4.5. The most intense reflections are readily assigned to diffraction from the GaAs{111}and n-MnSb{0002}planes, while reflections arising from c-MnSb{111}, GaSb{111}or w-MnSb{0002}, and MnSb(1101) crystallites are also observed.

There are two unidentified peaks present atQzvalues of 3.681 and 5.434 ˚A-1in

Figure 4.5 and these are denoted by an∗. Although these reflections cannot be indexed to any of the polymorphs and there exist four candidate origins for them. The first is the presence of stoichiometric compounds with increased Mn or Sb content, such as Mn2Sb

or MnSb2. The growth of Mn2Sb has been reported on GaAs(111) substrates, although

the layers were found to be orientated Mn2Sb(002)kGaAs(111) [114] and reflections from

this family of planes do not account for either of the unknown reflections. The presence of MnSb2 is rejected on the basis that it is only formed under high pressure conditions

[115]. Secondly, the methods used to mount the samples for use in the growth chamber and for diffraction experiments provide sources of elemental In and Cu, respectively. However, no reflections from these two materials correspond to the unknown peaks.

20 nm

20 nm

Figure 4.6: TEM image of the GaAs/MnSb interface revealing the presence of a large GaSb feature. The inset shows a zoom view of the crystallite.

Thirdly, although significant oxidation of the sample surface occurs following exposure to the atmosphere, resulting in MnO layers of∼3–5 nm, no reflections from MnO could be attributed to the observed peaks. Finally, it is probable that the peaks arise from substrate reflections due to multiple scattering events, although this cannot be reliably determined as the reflections do not occur for all samples.

The presence of GaSb ‘huts’ at the MnSb/GaAs interface has been observed in TEM (confirmed by SADP measurements) and an example of such a feature is shown in Figure 4.6. The inset shown in Figure 4.6 indicates that the GaSb crystallites are approximately 20 nm in height and so are readily observed in the symmetric diffraction data presented in Figure 4.5. The origin of these huts is likely to be the reaction of inci- dent Sb with Ga droplets on the GaAs surface, which form as a result of the IBA cycles used to clean the substrates. This reaction occurs on the substrate surface during the co-deposition of Mn and Sb, and so the GaSb structures are located at the MnSb/GaAs interface. Although the optimum growth temperature of GaSb is higher than that of MnSb, the large Sb overpressure compensates for this and so results in the formation of single crystal islands [116]. The ambiguity in differentiating between w-MnSb and GaSb features arises from the similar d-spacings of their respective crystallite orientations. Using the lowest index reflections present as an example, the GaSb huts are observed to be orientated (111) and the calculatedd-spacing is 3.520 ˚A (aGaSb = 6.096 ˚A [117])

while w-MnSb crystallites are orientated (0002) giving a d-spacing value of 3.502 ˚A (cw-MnSb = 7.003 ˚A). These spacings differ by∼0.5 % and, due to stoichiometry varia-

tions and strain effects, are complex to reliably separate and analyse.

A similar situation occurs between reflections from c-MnSb(111) and h-Sb(0003) crystallites. The relevantd-spacings are 3.754 ˚A (ac-MnSb = 6.502 ˚A) for c-MnSb and

3.758 ˚A (cSb= 11.274 ˚A [111]) for h-Sb. These spacings differ only by 0.1 % although

it is straightforward to avoid this overlap by studying uncapped samples.

4.3.1 J dependence of the polymorphs

It can be seen from Figure 4.5 that HRXRD can be used to identify the presence and structure of MnSb polymorphs. It is then informative to briefly consider the relative polymorph content of a film against the primary growth parameterJcorr (the method-

ology for calculating Jcorr was outlined in Section 2.1). The top panel of Figure 4.7

shows an illustrative schematic of the polymorph content (strong compared with weak) with varyingJcorr for a range of MnSb films. Note that this only illustrates the presence

of polymorphs and not the absolute content. The bottom panel then shows five θ-2θ

scans of MnSb samples with the polymorph peak positions labelled. The definition of a ‘strong’ polymorph presence is that the peak height of the lowest index reflection avail- able for a polymorph is greater than 10× the background signal. A ‘weak’ presence is then defined as having less than 10×the background counts but the peak is still readily identifiable. The two shaded regions indicate regions of non-optimalJcorr values. Sam-

ples grown using values in these regions often have non-optimal surface morphologies, with lowJcorr samples (termed ‘Sb-limited growth’) exhibiting Mn-rich surface features.

At higherJcorr values (termed ‘Non-planar growth’) a mesa-like morphology forms con-

sisting of large terraces (>1 µm) separated by trenches with depths equivalent to the film thickness. The numbers displayed on each of the scans in the top panel correspond to the sample points labelled equivalently in the bottom panel. The first point to note is the difference between samples with nominally identicalJcorr values, where the pres-

1 2 3 4 5 J J J J J n-MnSb(0002) n-MnSb(0004) n-MnSb(0006) c-MnSb(111) c-MnSb(222) c-MnSb(333) w-MnSb(0002) / GaSb(111) w-MnSb(0002) / GaSb(111)

(b)

(a)

Figure 4.7: Panel (a) shows the relative polymorph content, ‘strong’ or ‘weak’, of several MnSb films. It can be seen that all of the films considered contain polymorphs and that the majority of samples are strongly polymorphic. Panel (b) shows symmetric XRD diffraction data for five MnSb films, labelled as in (a), of varyingJcorr and the reflections arising from n-MnSb, c-MnSb and w-MnSb/GaSb have been

ence of the polymorph can vary significantly and is most likely a result of a per-sample variation in the Mn or Sb fluxes. This is observed between samples (1) and (2) where strong c-MnSb peaks are observed in (1) but are absent in (2). Conversely, strong cubic reflections are observed in scans (3) and (5), both of which have a ‘strong’ presence of polymorphs based on the top panel of Figure 4.7. This variation in samples is likely due to the lateral inhomogeneity in the Mn flux, as outlined in Section 2.1. All five samples are observed to have a broad feature on the lowerQzside of the labelled c-MnSb(222)

position which suggests that strained c-MnSb exists in the majority of samples. As such, the polymorph presence and content varies significantly between samples, although all samples are observed to be polymorphic in some way.

In the following sections the behaviour of the lattice parameter and strain dis- persion of the polymorphs are investigated as a function of grain size,Jcorr and Mn flux.

The behaviour of the predominant niccolite (n-MnSb) phase is considered first as it is the predominant phase present in MnSb thin films. Subsequently the behaviour of the cubic (c-MnSb) and wurtzite (w-MnSb) phases are discussed.