Epitaxial Mn₅Ge₃ (100) layer on Ge (100) substrates obtained by flash lamp annealing

Mn₅Ge₃ thin films have been demonstrated as promising spin-injector materials for germanium-based spintronic devices. So far, Mn₅Ge₃ has been grown epitaxially only on Ge (111) substrates. In this letter, we present the growth of epitaxial Mn₅Ge₃ films on Ge (100) substrates. The Mn₅Ge₃ film is synthetized via sub-second solid-state reaction between Mn and Ge upon flash lamp annealing for 20 ms at the ambient pressure. The single crystalline Mn₅Ge₃ is ferromagnetic with a Curie temperature of 283 K. Both the c-axis of hexagonal Mn₅Ge₃ and the magnetic easy axis are parallel to the Ge (100) surface. The millisecond-range flash epitaxy provides a new avenue for the fabrication of Ge-based spin-injectors fully compatible with CMOS technology.