A comparative study of the thermal stability of the (103) surface of group-III-metal/group-IV-semiconductor systems

Abstract

To investigate and understand the thermal stability of the (103) surface of the Al Si , Ga Si , In Si , Al Ge , Ga Ge , and In Ge systems, in the present article we study well-annealed surfaces of the systems as well as those of the Ga Si , Al Ge , and Ga Ge(001) systems by means of LEED and AES. The results show that the (103) surfaces of the Al Ge and Ga Ge systems are unstable while those of the other four III IV(103) systems are very stable. On the basis of the atomic structure of the III IV(103) 1 × 1 surface and the covalent bond length of the involved elements, we suggest that this is because group-III atoms would induce significant tensile stresses to the surface of the Al Ge and Ga Ge systems, while tensile stresses around group-III atoms are not favored by the III IV systems.