The faceted surface morphologies of homo-epitaxial films which had been grown onto exactly (¯1¯1¯1)-oriented GaAs substrates in the 19 x 19 regime were studied with the aid of an atomic force microscope. The facets were composed of 3 vicinal surfaces which were tilted by about 2 towards the [2¯1¯1], [¯12¯1], and [¯1¯12] directions. The diffusion length was deduced from the surface morphologies, and was found to be equal to some hundreds of nm. It was comparable to the diffusion length on (100) surfaces which were grown under the same conditions. It was concluded that facet formation on GaAs (¯1¯1¯1) films was unlikely to be caused by a lower surface mobility.

K.Yang, L.J.Schowalter, T.Thundat: Applied Physics Letters, 1994, 64[13], 1641-3