A SCANNING-TUNNELING-MICROSCOPY STUDY OF LOW-TEMPERATURE-GROWN GAAS

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) has been used to investigate the effect of low-temperature (LT) growth of GaAs by molecular beam epitaxy on the morphology of the resulting surface. We present STM images of a GaAs(001) surface that was grown at similar to 300 degrees C and subsequently annealed at 600 degrees C and show that there is a recovery of the (2x4) reconstruction. We also report images of a surface grown on top of a buried LT GaAs layer and show that the LT layer has little effect on the resulting surface morphology. In addition, scanning tunneling spectroscopy spectra are presented which demonstrate that the current-voltage characteristics of annealed and unannealed LT grown GaAs are significantly different.