Diffusion and clustering of substitutional Mn in (Ga,Mn)As

Abstract

The Ga vacancy mediated microstructure evolution of (Ga,Mn)As during growth and postgrowth annealing is studied using a multiscale approach. The migration barriers for the Ga vacancies and substitutional Mn together with their interactions are calculated using first principles, and temporal evolution at temperatures 200-350 °C is studied using lattice kinetic Monte Carlo simulations. We show that at the typical growth and annealing temperatures (i) Ga vacancies provide an efficient diffusion transport for Mn and (ii) in 10-20 h the diffusion of Mn promotes the formation of clusters. Clustering reduces the Curie temperature, and explains its decrease during long-term annealing. © 2005 American Institute of Physics.