Structural and electronic properties of group III Rich In0.53Ga0.47As(001)

The structural and electronic properties of group III rich In0.53Ga0.47As(001) have been studied using scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/STS). At room temperature (300 K), STM images show that the In0.53Ga0.47As(001)–(4 × 2) reconstruction is comprised of undimerized In/Ga atoms in the top layer. Quantitative comparison of the In0.53Ga0.47As(001)–(4 × 2) and InAs(001)–(4 × 2) shows the reconstructions are almost identical, but In0.53Ga0.47As(001)–(4 × 2) has at least a 4× higher surface defect density even on the best samples. At low temperature (77 K), STM images show that the most probable In0.53Ga0.47As(001) reconstruction is comprised of one In/Ga dimer and two undimerized In/Ga atoms in the top layer in a double (4 × 2) unit cell. Density functional theory (DFT) simulations at elevated temperature are consistent with the experimentally observed 300 K structure being a thermal superposition of three structures. DFT molecular dynamics (MD) show the row dimer formation and breaking is facilitated by the very large motions of tricoodinated row edge As atoms and z motion of In/Ga row atoms induced changes in As–In/Ga–As bond angles at elevated temperature. STS results show there is a surface dipole or the pinning states near the valence band (VB) for 300 K In0.53Ga0.47As(001)–(4 × 2) surface consistent with DFT calculations. DFT calculations of the band-decomposed charge density indicate that the strained unbuckled trough dimers being responsible for the surface pinning.