A LEED, ELS study of InP(100) surfaces prepared by phosphorus deposition and post-annealing

Both In-stabilised (4*2) and P-stabilised (1*4) surface reconstructions of InP(100) have been obtained by using ion sputtering followed with successive phosphorus deposition and annealing. Electron energy loss spectroscopy has been proved to be a sensitive and reliable technique in identifying the existence of surface indium islands as well as the characteristic of the outermost atomic layer. The (1*4) structure is probably a random combination of (2*4) and c(2*8) reconstructions. This suggests that the P-stabilised InP(100) surface prepared by the above treatment is less ordered than the In-stabilised (4*2) structure.