The Effect of the Composition of a Carrier Gas during the Growth of a Mn delta-Layer on the Electrical and Magnetic Properties of GaAs Structures

Abstract

The effect of the arsine content (from 0 to 8 μmol), supplied to a reactor together with hydrogen, on the formation of delta-doped gallium-arsenide structures by the pulsed laser sputtering of a Mn target is investigated. It is found that an arsine molar fraction of ~2.5 μmol in the reactor atmosphere during the formation of a Mn delta-doped GaAs layer allows one to obtain single-crystal epitaxial structures with the lowest layer resistance and a ferromagnetic-paramagnetic phase transition temperature of about 40 K. Increasing the arsine content to 8 μmol or the absence of arsine in a hydrogen flow leads to a significant increase in the layer resistance in the temperature range below 150 K and a decrease in the Curie temperature. In the first case, this may be due to partial compensation of the hole conductivity by donor-type defects formed as a result of an excess of arsenic on the growing surface (arsenic atoms in Ga positions or in interstitial positions). In the second case, when no arsine is supplied to the reactor, the growth surface is likely to be enriched with gallium atoms, which makes the incorporation of Mn into the Ga sublattice difficult.