Improving surface smoothness and photoluminescence of CdTe(111) A on Si(111) substrates grown by molecular beam epitaxy using Mn atoms

This work demonstrates an improvement of the molecular beam epitaxial growth of CdTe( 111) A epilayer on Si( 1 1 1 ) substrates using Mn atoms. The reflection high- energy electron diffraction patterns show that the involvement of some Mn atoms in the growth of CdTe( 1 1 1 ) A is even more effective than the use of a buffer layer with a smooth surface for forming good CdTe( 1 1 1 ) A epilayers. 10 K Photoluminescence spectra show that the incorporation of only 2% Mn significantly reduced the intensity of defect- related emissions and considerably increased the integral intensity of exciton- related emissions by a large factor of about 400. (C) 2014 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.