TEM studies of self-organization phenomena in CdSe fractional monolayers in a ZnSe matrix

Abstract The main stages of the intrinsic morphology transformation of MBE and MEE grown CdSe/ZnSe fractional monolayers (FMs) have been investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The FM morphology evolution is studied as a function of the FM nominal thickness in the range of 0.1–2.8 ML. Emergence of self-organized extended (15–30 nm) CdSe-based pseudomorphic islands is observed in the plan-view TEM images of FMs with a nominal thickness above 0.7 ML. A comparative analysis of the MEE and MBE grown structures has shown that in the case of MEE mode the FM morphology is more homogeneous.