Morphology of the Ag GaSb (110) interface : a study by quantitative AES

The chemistry and electronic properties of the Ag/GaSb (110) interface formed at room and low temperature have been recently studied with a number of surface analysis techniques. All the results agree to show that at low temperature and at low coverage, the Ag layer is two dimensional and presumably composed of isolated atoms or very small 2D clusters, while three dimensional nucleation prevails at low temperature and higher coverage or at room temperature. Using quantitative Auger electron spectroscopy our study confirms the 2D growth at low temperature. It shows that the 3D evolution is not due to a simultaneous monolayer growth mechanism but agree with the enlargement of clusters whose area linearly increases with the number of impinging Ag atoms.