Atomic structure determination of InSb(100)c(4x4) and c(8x2)phases by X-ray photoelectron diffraction

Full text: The (100) surfaces of III-V compound semiconductors exhibit a variety of surface reconstructions that have attracted a lot of attention because of their importance in both homo epitaxial and heteroepitaxial growth. In the special case of the narrow bandgap InSb compound semiconductor its potential application in high-speed electronic and optoelectronic devices has encourage many studies of its (100) surface atomic structure. Among the reconstructions presented by the InSb(100) surface two of them have received more attention, that is, the observed well-ordered In-rich c(8x2) and Sb terminated c(4x4) surfaces. The c(8x2) structure can be obtained by exposing the surface to low energy ion bombardment and annealing, whereas the c(4x4) structure involves the chemisorption of Sb onto an already Sb-terminated surface. These two structures have been studied mainly by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and surface X-ray diffraction (SXRD) techniques and all the proposed models are based on the occurrence of group III (and/or V) blocks of dimmers occupying sites on the top or at subsurface layer. However, there are still difficulties in determining either the exact number of atoms in each dimmer or the number of dimmers in each block. With the goal of getting a better structure determination of the InSb(100) surface phases a photoelectron diffraction experiment (XPD) was carried out at LNLS where synchrotron and Al-Kα radiations have been used. In the present work, the experimental and preliminary results of structure determination for both In Sn(100)c(8x2) and InSb(100)c(4x4) phases will be presented and discussed. (author)