Using molecular-beam epitaxy and in situ scanning tunnelling microscopy, it was demonstrated how various reconstructions associated with different III–V growth surfaces could create interfacial roughness, and that an understanding of this phenomenon could be used to control the roughness at the atomic scale. The different compositions of a clean InAs(001)-(2 x 4) surface (V/III = 0.5ML/0.75ML) and an Sb-terminated one (~1.7ML/1ML) caused the InSb-like interfacial surface to have a bi-level morphology. This surface roughness could be eliminated by depositing additional In in order to compensate exactly for the difference. It was thought that similar types of roughness occurred in all heterostructures where the growth surface reconstruction changed at the interfaces, and that a similar procedure would be equally effective in reducing that roughness.

Effects of Surface Reconstruction on III–V Semiconductor Interface Formation - the Role of III/V Composition. B.Z.Nosho, W.H.Weinberg, W.Barvosa-Carter, B.R.Bennett, B.V.Shanabrook, L.J.Whitman: Applied Physics Letters, 1999, 74[12], 1704