A model for the surface reconstruction of cubic GaN was proposed which accounted for both short- and long-range forces. The analysis showed that short-range covalent contributions to the bond energies could not, by themselves, explain the difference in stability of various surface configurations. The analysis, which included long-range ionic contributions, showed that at all typical molecular beam epitaxy epitaxy temperatures the cubic GaN film with a free-carrier concentration larger than 1016/cm3 should have a tendency to develop surface reconstruction. The qualitative explanation of the reconstruction effects on the Ga surface of the (001) surface of cubic GaN could be linked to a large difference in atomic sizes of Ga and N.

Surface Reconstruction of Zincblende GaN. A.D.Bykhovski, M.S.Shur: Applied Physics Letters, 1996, 69[16], 2397