Morphological variability of CeIn3 thin films grown by molecular beam epitaxy

We report results concerning the thin film growth of CeIn(3) using the molecular beam epitaxy technique. A series of films on alpha-Al(2)O(3) (a- and c-plane), and MgO(100) substrates was grown by co-evaporation of the constituent elements. We observed strong islanding and, as a consequence, discontinuous films with a Ce:In ratio of 1:3. We suggest that the islanding is driven by de-wetting processes induced by the In component, since In is well known for its de-wetting characteristics when grown on insulating surfaces. We furthermore observed a pronounced morphological variability for films grown under nominally identical conditions on MgO (100) and alpha-Al(2)O(3) (c-plane) substrates. For films on alpha-Al(2)O(3) (a-plane) the morphological structures proved to be more reproducible. By optimizing the growth process it is possible to stabilize a surface morphology consisting of well-isolated micron-sized CeIn3 islands. Electronic transport measurements were performed on these micro crystals and on thin films.