Fabrication and X-Ray diffractometry investigations of CdTe/MnTe multriple quantum wires

Quantum wires were defined by holographic lithography and fabricated by dry etching techniques from (CdTe)/(MnTe) superlattices (SLs), which were grown by molecular beam epitaxy. The SLs were grown pseudomorphically on Cd0,g6Zn0,0,4Te (001) oriented substrates. X-ray reciprocal space mapping around (004) and (115) reciprocal lattice points was used to measure the periods both along the [001] growth- and the [110] lateral corrugation- direction. The arrays had a typical period of about 500 nm. The analysis of the x-ray data shows that after the reactive ion etching process the mean SL lattice constant along growth direction increases by about 0.1 to 0.15 %, whereas the inplane lattice constant does not change. In annealing experiments a partial relaxation of the fabrication induced strain in the growth direction was observed.