Reentrant Behavior of the Density vs. Temperature of Indium Islands on GaAs(111)A

We show that the density of indium islands on GaAs(111)A substrates have a non-monotonic, reentrant behavior as a function of the indium deposition temperature. The expected increase in the density with decreasing temperature, indeed, is observed only down to 160 °C, where the indium islands undertake the expected liquid-to-solid phase transition. Further decreasing the temperature causes a sizable reduction of the island density. An additional reentrant increasing behavior is observed below 80 °C. We attribute the above complex behavior to the liquid–solid phase transition and to the complex island–island interaction which takes place between crystalline islands in the presence of strain. Indium solid islands grown at temperatures below 160 °C have a face-centered cubic crystal structure.