Atomistic aspects of molecular beam epitaxy

Atomistic aspects of crystal growth are described by taking molecular beam epitaxy as an example. First, it is noted that the diffusion length of adatom incorporation is completely different from that of re-evaporation. Then, the detection of 2D-nuclei by RHEED intensity oscillation and nucleation related phenomena in MBE are discussed. In the third part, we study the surface diffusion between two facets, which we call inter-surface diffusion. The inter-surface diffusion is a key process that determines the final facets that appear on the microstructures employed such as those for quantum devices. By controlling the inter-surface diffusion, one can fabricate microstructures. As an example, a description is given that shows how the top size of a truncated GaAs pyramid is controlled by changing the arsenic pressure.