Expedient fabrication of fine-featured integrated circuits entails aperture pattern delineation to produce a masking layer atop a semiconductor body followed by insertion within a controlled atmosphere chamber within which device-functional layered material is epitaxially grown within apertures. Critical, device-consequential properties of epitaxial material is assured by removal of a thin surface layer of material revealed during delineation. Such removal, sufficient to eliminate meaningful contamination and/or crystalline damage introduced during delineation, is of sufficiently small quantity as to be accommodated within the chamber. Under most circumstances, the controlled atmosphere is at reduced pressure as required for e.g. MOMBE epitaxial growth.