A self-limiting mechanism in atomic layer epitaxy (ALE) has been invesitgated for the heterostructures and superlattices of III-V compounds. InAs/InAs(001), InAs/GaAs(001), GaAs/InAs(001), InxGa1-xAs/GaAs(001), GaP/GaP(001) GaP/GaAs(001) and (InAs)(m)(GaAs)(n)/GaAs(001) were grown by pulsed-jet-epitaxy with trimethylgallium, trimethylindium, trisdimethylaminoarsine, trisdimethylaminophosophine, arsine and phosphine as source materials. The self-limiting mechanism was largely affected by lattice mismatch between epitaxial layer and the substrate and by an atomic level surface morphology. The incorporation of misfit dislocations at the heterointerface played an important role in the self-limiting mechanism. The strained-layered superlattice of (InAs)(m)(GaAs)(n) enabled us to grow InGaAs layer with an effectively high indium composition. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.