Apparent Charge Transfer at Semiconductor Surfaces

We investigate the apparent charge transfer between adatoms in the GeXPb[l.XjGe(lll) interface both experimentally and theoretically. Scanning tunneling microscopy and surface core level measurements suggest significant charge transfer from the Ge adatoms to the Pb adatoms. However, first-principles calculations unambiguously find that the total electronic displacement is negligibly small, and that the results of published experiments can be explained as a result of bond rearrangement