Zinc blende (ZB) MnS has been grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on GaAs (10 0) substrates by a novel technique, developed previously for the growth of ZB MgS, which uses ZnS as a source of sulfur. Layers of up to 132 nm thick have been produced without any degradation of the crystal structure. Photoluminescence (PL) of single layers shows emission at 2.13 eV, indicating the presence of tetrahedrally co-ordinated Mn atoms. The lattice constant was found to be 0.5559 +/-0.0002 nm. Heterostructures of MnS/ZnSe and MgS/MnS have been fabricated and PL shows an electron confinement energy of 225 meV for a 4 nm MnS/ZnSe heterostructure. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.