Abstract
A preliminary analysis of the nature of the defect causing Fermi-level pinning on the (110) faces of the (III–V) semiconductors is presented. Attention is focused on the cases of vicinal faces. Steps along the (110), (11̄1) and (001) directions are considered as well as clusters of steps. It is first shown that the high density of states observed on small disorientation angle faces can be understood only for steps along the (11̄0) direction. The absence of LEED patterns for steps on the (110) faces is discussed: it may suggest that clusters of steps must be chosen preferentially to single steps. One is then led to discriminate between steps with metallic and nonmetallic atom edges. To do this the energy dependent effective interactions method is applied to provide an estimation of the step levels of gallium arsenide for every configuration. The results are discussed: it is proposed that one of the most likely geometry might be a cluster of steps with nonmetallic atom edges, each atom bearing only one dangling bond.
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