Morphology, density, and temporal evolution of topological defects in reverse epitaxy

Low-energy ion-irradiation of semiconductors above their recrystallization temperature has been shown to induce regular nanoscale patterning of the crystalline surface. The mechanism is called reverse epitaxy in analogy to epitaxy in growth: ion-induced mobile vacancies and ad-atoms on the crystalline surface encounter the Ehrlich-Schwoebel energy barrier for crossing terrace steps and exhibit preferential diffusion along specific in-plane directions. This can lead to the formation of well-defined faceted surface structures with morphologies strongly dependent on crystalline structure and surface orientation. For instance, GaAs(001) and InAs(001) develop periodic ripple structures with a saw tooth profile.
We have studied the topological defects in ion-induced patterns on GaAs(001) and InAs(001), i.e. ripple junctions, and present results from both experiments and simulations on the following aspects:
-- defect morphology and the influence of polar and azimuthal ion incidence angles thereon
-- dependence of the defect density on sample temperature and ion energy
-- temporal evolution of the defect density
-- defect motion and annihilation processes
We find strong dependencies on the easily controllable external process parameters, which is crucial information when preparing ion-induced surface patterns for specific applications.