Growth of epitaxial films of CdTe and (Cd,Mn)Te on GaAs substrates

Epitaxial films of CdTe and (Cd,Mn)Te were grown on (001) GaAs substrates in a vacuum evaporator. Conventional Bragg diffraction indicated that the films had a single orientation, either (a) CdTe(001) ∥ GaAs(001), or (b) CdTe(111) ∥ GaAs(001). Grazing-incidence x-ray diffraction showed that most of the films had both orientations with (a) CdTe[110] ∥ GaAs[110] and (b) CdTe[112̄] ∥ GaAs[110]. Only one of the two possible domains was found in case (b). A mosaic of well-crystallized islands appears to accommodate the large film strain of -12.8% due to the lattice mismatch between CdTe and GaAs.