Abstract
The behavior of monolayer-deep holes during annealing after molecular beam epitaxy growth was observed in situ by scanning electron microscopy. Most of the small holes formed by coalescence of islands during growth shrink and disappear as soon as the islands disappear. However some holes are left unremoved and grow and coalesce with each other to form large holes. They grow in the [110] direction but shrink in the [11̄0] direction. They finally shrink and disappear at about 10 min. It is shown that annihilation of holes plays an important role in surface smoothing during annealing after growth. The anisotropic behavior is attributed to the preference of detachment of Ga atoms from Ga-terminated A-steps and attachment to As-terminated B-steps.
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