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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 sizeable 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.