Structural and magnetic properties of epitaxially grown MnAs films on GaAs(110)

MnAs films were grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on GaAs(110) substrates, since this orientation was recently identified as promising for the increase of spin lifetimes in semiconductor heterojunctions, which is of interest in spin injection experiments. A single epitaxial orientation was revealed for the MnAs films which consist of both the ferromagnetic, hexagonal α-MnAs and the paramagnetic, orthorhombic β-MnAs phase at room temperature. This phase coexistence could be imaged as a well ordered stripe pattern, whose periodicity depends on the film thickness. The study of the ferromagnetic properties shows a strong influence of the film thickness on the measured coercive fields and saturation magnetizations.