Surface Roughness Changes Induced by Stoichiometric Deviation in Ambient Phase for Two-Component Semiconductor Crystals

The effects of a deviation in the fraction of the components in the ambient phase of a stoichiometric AB compound, such as GaN or SiC crystals, on the surface roughness and step self-assembly and disassembly on a vicinal surface are studied using the Monte Carlo method based on a staggered restricted solid-on-solid (st-RSOS) model at equilibrium. The (001) and (111) surfaces are typical examples of non-polar and polar surfaces, respectively. Although a stoichiometric deviation of the ambient phase does not affect the surface energy of a non-polar surface, it affects that of polar surfaces such as the ( 111 ) A and ( 111 ) B surfaces. We found that the vicinal surface of an AB compound is atomically smooth and globally rough. Globally, the vicinal surface is not affected by a stoichiometric deviation in the ambient phase. In contrast, in a small area, the structure of the vicinal surface is affected by a stoichiometric deviation in the ambient phase. The vicinal surface consists of local double and quadruple steps. The characteristic length L M F L , which separates the global length scale region and the local length scale region, has a maximum value of 156 a in the present study, where a is the lattice constant. When temperature decreases, L M F L can become large.