201. N−nH complexes in GaAs studied at the atomic scale by cross-sectional scanning tunneling microscopy
- Author
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Antonio Polimeni, A. Gonzalo, Michael E. Flatté, Douwe Tjeertes, PM Paul Koenraad, Cuneyt Sahin, Francesco Biccari, JM José Maria Ulloa, Marco Felici, Giorgio Pettinari, M. S. Sharma, Massimo Gurioli, and Tom Verstijnen
- Subjects
Local density of states ,Materials science ,Band gap ,02 engineering and technology ,Condensed Matter::Mesoscopic Systems and Quantum Hall Effect ,021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology ,01 natural sciences ,Atomic units ,Molecular physics ,law.invention ,Crystal ,Quantum dot ,law ,0103 physical sciences ,Molecule ,Density functional theory ,Scanning tunneling microscope ,010306 general physics ,0210 nano-technology - Abstract
Hydrogenation of nitrogen (N) doped GaAs allows for reversible tuning of the band gap and the creation of site controlled quantum dots through the manipulation of N−nH complexes, N−nH complexes, wherein a nitrogen atom is surrounded by n hydrogen (H) atoms. Here we employ cross-sectional scanning tunneling microscopy (X-STM) to study these complexes in the GaAs (110) surface at the atomic scale. In addition to that we performed density functional theory (DFT) calculations to determine the atomic properties of the N−nH complexes. We argue that at or near the (110) GaAs surface two H atoms from N−nH complexes dissociate as an H2 molecule. We observe multiple features related to the hydrogenation process, of which a subset is classified as N-1H complexes. These N-1H related features show an apparent reduction of the local density of states (LDOS), characteristic to N atoms in the GaAs (110) surface with an additional apparent localized enhancement of the LDOS located in one of three crystal directions. N−nH features can be manipulated with the STM tip. Showing in one case a switching behavior between two mirror-symmetric states and in another case a removal of the localized enhancement of the LDOS. The disappearance of the bright contrast is most likely a signature of the removal of an H atom from the N−nH complex.
- Published
- 2020
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