GROWTH OF STRAINED GAAS ISLANDS ON (001) GAP - A RHEED STUDY OF QUANTUM-WIRE FORMATION

The evolution of the initial GaAs islands that form on flat (0 0 1) Ga P during chemical beam epitaxy has been studied for layer thicknesses below 10 GaAs monolayers. Reflection high-energy electron diffraction and atomic force microscopy were used to characterize island formation in reciprocal and direct space, respectively. Both methods clearly sh ow the anisotropic growth behavior, beginning with growth of isolated elongated islands which at thicker deposition evolve into a corrugated surface of densely packed GaAs quantum wires. Intensity-versus-time m easurements were made for island-related diffraction features which al lowed distinctions to be made between the different morphological grow th regimes. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights res erved.