A He beam scattering study was made of the erosion of the (110) surface by low-energy Ar+ bombardment. Layer-by-layer erosion was observed for surface temperatures above 510K, and was found to occur via the nucleation of vacancy islands, island growth, and coalescence. The average island distance was measured at various stages of the erosion process, and was found to evolve in good agreement with rate equations which were derived from models for island growth via atomic deposition. A general increase in the average terrace width was also observed with increasing number of removed layers. The activation energy for the inter-layer diffusion of InSb dimer vacancies was 1.14eV.

D.Cvetko, V.De Renzi, L.Floreano, A.Morgante, M.Peloi, F.Tommasini, V.Cháb, K.C.Prince: Physical Review B, 1995, 51[24], 17957-64