Reflection high-energy electron diffraction ϕ scans for in situ monitoring the heteroepitaxial growth of Fe on GaN(0001) by molecular beam epitaxy

The heteroepitaxial growth of Fe films on GaN(0001) by molecular beam epitaxy is monitored in situ by reflection high-energy electron diffraction ϕ scans. The complex epitaxial orientation-relationship between Fe and GaN can be visualized by these ϕ scans already at an Fe coverage of two monolayers. By comparing the data to ex situ x-ray ϕ scans, we show that these measurements even allow a quantitative determination of the in-plane orientation-distribution of the heteroepitaxial film. The orientation-distribution is minimized for a growth temperature of 350 ° C .