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Mn5Ge3 is a ferromagnetic material with the high potential for spintronic applications. Usually, it is grown by conventional solid state reaction of manganese with germanium using molecular beam epitaxy. Here, we report the structural and magnetic properties of Mn5Ge3 layers grown on Ge substrates using ultrafast-solid phase epitaxy (SPE) method. We investigate the influence of the substrate orientation, Mn layer thickness and annealing parameters on the crystallographic orientation and magnetization of Mn5Ge3. It is shown that after millisecond range SPE, Mn5Ge3 films always have a preferred (100) orientation whether grown on Ge (001) or (111) substrates, which determines the orientation of the magnetization easy axis lying in the film plane along c axis independent of the layer thickness. The Curie temperature of Mn5Ge3 weakly depends on fabrication parameters.
Direct-band-gap Germanium-Tin alloys (Ge1-xSnx) with high carrier mobilities are promising materials for nano- and optoelectronics. The concentration of open volume defects in the alloy, such as Sn and Ge vacancies, influences the final device performance. In this article, we present an evaluation of the point defects in molecular-beam-epitaxy grown Ge1-xSnx films treated by post-growth nanosecond-range pulsed laser melting (PLM). Doppler broadening – variable energy positron annihilation spectroscopy and variable energy positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy are used to investigate the defect nanostructure in the Ge1-xSnx films exposed to increasing laser energy density. The experimental results, supported with ATomic SUPerposition calculations, evidence that after PLM, the average size of the open volume defects increases, which represents a raise in concentration of vacancy agglomerations, but the overall defect density is reduced as a function of the PLM fluence. At the same time, the positron annihilation spectroscopy analysis provides information about dislocations and Ge vacancies decorated by Sn atoms. Moreover, it is shown that the PLM reduces the strain in the layer, while dislocations are responsible for trapping of Sn and formation of small Sn-rich-clusters.