We have studied the phonon dispersion and density-of-states on the (110) su
rface of LI-VT compounds CdTe, ZnTe, and ZnS in their zinc-blende phase by
applying the adiabatic bond charge model. The relaxed surface atomic geomet
ry and the corresponding bond charge information is obtained from the appli
cation of an ab initio pseudopotential calculation. The origins of various
surface phonon modes are discussed and their variation for different compou
nds are analyzed in terms of the reduced mass and total mass differences. F
urthermore, we have related some differences between surface modes on II-VI
(110) and III-V (110) in terms of the ionicity factor.