Control of morphology changes in self-assembled Mn-based nanostructures overgrown with mismatched material

Reproducibility of size and shape for epitaxially grown self-assembling Mn- based nanostructures was achieved by tracing the formation process via refl ectance difference spectroscopy. Pure Mn crystallites were at first fabrica ted on a CdTe(001) Te-terminated surface and, in a second stage, a variety of well-controlled strain-induced island morphologies was obtained with the deposition of semiconducting materials on the magnetic precursors. (c) 199 9 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)01424-2].