Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B, Vol.14, No.2, 1024-1028, 1996
Island, Trimer, and Chain Formation on the Sb-Terminated GaAs(111)B Surface
The surface structures resulting from the deposition of various coverages of Sb on the GaAs(lll)B-(2x2) surface at room temperature, followed by annealing in the 100-375 degrees C temperature range, have been investigated using scanning tunneling microscopy. At low annealing temperatures Sb islands are observed displaying no ordered atomic structure, between which the As trimer based (2x2) reconstruction of the clean GaAs surface is visible. Annealing above 250 degrees C causes the formation of Sb trimers which are distinguishable from the remaining As trimers via contrast differences in filled- and empty-state images, Annealing at still higher temperatures leads to the creation of Sb chain pairs oriented along the substrate [110] directions, coexisting with regions of Sb trimer based reconstruction between the chain pairs, The local periodicity of the patterns of Sb trimers between the chain pairs is dependent on the separation between chain pairs.