InP was grown by chemical beam epitaxy in narrow windows of widths varying between 20 and 2 &mgr;m, oriented along the [011] or [01¯1] directions opened in aSiO2mask on an (001) InP substrate. Several facets appear along the sidewalls and on the edge of the mesas owing to different growth rates on different crystallographic planes. These can be understood as consequences of the migration of group III species from one crystallographic plane to another. We have studied the formation of such facets and their effects on the growth of GaInAs/InP structures of various thicknesses. The samples were studied using a field emission scanning electron microscope (SEM) and low temperature photoluminescence (PL). SEM micrographs show that for lines oriented along the [011] direction the dominant InP sidewall facets are (111)Bplanes on which GaInAs does not grow as long as Ga and In species can migrate towards (001). For the orthogonal direction, however, the lateral growth rate of the InP sidewalls is large and the faceting of the mesas is more complicated. The PL spectra of GaInAs quantum wells grown on such mesas exhibit several peaks whose energy depends on the initial width of the mask. They can be interpreted in terms of crystallographic plane dependent migration and desorption rates of Ga and In species. The (111)Bfacets of [011] directed mesas were used to produce inverted V-shaped mesa wire structures. ©1997 American Institute of Physics.