Islands and defects on the growing InAs(001)-(2×4) surface

Abstract Scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) and kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) simulations have been used to study the nature of islands and defects during the initial stages of homoepitaxy on InAs(001)-(2×4). The density of defects (principally missing arsenic dimers) is found to be strongly temperature-dependent. The density and atomic configuration of the islands also vary as a function of temperature for fixed InAs coverage (0.1 ML). These effects are qualitatively explained using the KMC model, which shows that the arsenic kinetics are the most important factor behind the observed temperature dependence.