Structural evolution of dilute magnetic (Sn,Mn)Se films grown by molecular beam epitaxy

Tracy, Brian D.; Smith, David J.; Okuno, Hanako; Mariette, Henri; Furdyna, Jacek K.; Dobrowolska, Margaret; Rouvimov, Sergei; Dong, Sining; Ptasinska, Sylwia; Kanzyuba, Vasily; Li, Xiang; Liu, Xinyu; Zhang, Xueqiang

doi:10.1063/1.4976206

Structural evolution of dilute magnetic (Sn,Mn)Se films grown by molecular beam epitaxy

journal contribution

posted on 2018-08-23, 00:00 authored by Brian D. Tracy, David J. Smith, Hanako Okuno, Henri Mariette, Jacek K. Furdyna, Margaret Dobrowolska, Sergei Rouvimov, Sining Dong, Sylwia Ptasinska, Vasily Kanzyuba, Xiang Li, Xinyu Liu, Xueqiang Zhang

We describe the structural evolution of dilute magnetic (Sn,Mn)Se films grown by molecular beam epitaxy on GaAs (111) substrates, as revealed by transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. When the Mn concentration is increased, the lattice of the ternary (Sn,Mn)Se films evolves quasi-coherently from a SnSe2 two-dimensional (2D) crystal structure into a more complex quasi-2D lattice rearrangement, ultimately transforming into the magnetically concentrated antiferromagnetic MnSe 3D rock-salt structure as Mn approaches 50 at. % of this material. These structural transformations are expected to underlie the evolution of magnetic properties of this ternary system reported earlier in the literature.