A grazing incidence X-ray diffraction surface structure study was made of the (001) c(2 x 2) reconstructed surface of material which had been grown by means of molecular beam epitaxy. The structural analysis revealed a model with Cd bridges; corresponding to a coverage of 0.5 of a monolayer of Cd, as expected from previous studies. This surface arrangement was associated with a significant relaxation of the underlying substrate, down to the sixth atomic layer. A marked anisotropy of the reconstructed domain dimensions was observed and quantified. The results were suggested to explain the anisotropic behavior which was observed during homo-epitaxial and hetero-epitaxial growth on CdTe.

M.B.Veron, M.Sauvage-Simkin, V.H.Etgens, S.Tatarenko, H.A.Van der Vegt, S.Ferrer: Applied Physics Letters, 1995, 67[26], 3957-9