Nanoscale peculiarities of the thermally stimulated surface autosegregation of covalent crystals: Gallium arsenide

摘要

Nanoscale changes in the morphology and elemental composition of cleavage surfaces of gallium arsenide crystals, which arise due to thermally stimulated surface autosegregation, are investigated in detail and systematized. It is shown that, depending on the annealing conditions (temperature, duration, and evacuation), gallium arsenide dissociates, forming submicron nonstoichiometric layers on the surface or local phases of arsenic, gallium, and gallium oxide. The mechanism and nature of autosegregation are determined by the competing processes of arsenic sublimation and its surface diffusion with an activation energy of ～31 kJ/mol. The migration of arsenic atoms is described with the help of a crystallochemical model. The nanomorphology of the surface phases includes arsenic and gallium nanoparticles with sizes of 10-200 nm, their agglomerates, and gallium oxide nano- and microcrystallites combined in plate- and chainlike configurations.