Ga-triggered oxide desorption from GaAs(100) and non-(100) substrates

Surface pit formation is observed to occur for conventional thermal oxide desorption, regardless of the GaAs surface index. The resulting surface roughening can be substantially reduced by depositing an appropriate amount of Ga in the absence of As flux. The amount of Ga required to optimize the quality of the oxide-free GaAs surface is found to be different for different indexed substrates and is dependent on the oxide thicknesses. Due to the flexibility of the GaAs surface reconstruction, the Ga-triggered oxide desorption is observed to be much more robust than was previously believed. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.