Evolution of monolayer terrace topography on (100) GaAs annealed under an arsine/hydrogen ambient

The topographical evolution of the (100) GaAs surface annealed under an arsine/hydrogen ambient is studied by in situ orientation-resolved light scattering and ex situ atomic force microscopy (AFM). The light scattering system provides real-time monitoring of the magnitude and crystal orientation of topographical features of 0.3 μm scale. The AFM images of the GaAs surface, quenched at various annealing temperatures, vividly depict the randomly oriented high density monolayer steps evolving into an atomically smooth terracelike structure.