The effects of glancing-incidence Ar-ion bombardment (3 to 4keV) upon homo-epitaxial growth on vicinal GaAs(001) surfaces were described. It was found that the average adatom lifetime on surface terraces, as measured during growth by using specular ion scattering, decreased monotonically with increasing ion current density. The results indicated that the surface diffusivity was increased by the ions. The ions also suppressed growth oscillations and decreased the film surface roughness. This indicated a change, from 2-dimensional island nucleation to step-flow growth, due to an increased adatom surface diffusivity. A simple model, which involved direct momentum transfer from ions to adatoms, was shown to be consistent with the observed enhanced diffusion.

Glancing-Angle Ion-Enhanced Surface Diffusion on GaAs(001) during Molecular Beam Epitaxy. P.M.DeLuca, K.C.Ruthe, S.A.Barnett: Physical Review Letters, 2001, 86[2], 260-3