keV Ion-Induced Effective Surface Modifications on InP

Abstract

In the present study, we have analyzed the changes in surface morphology leading to formation of periodic structures known as ripples which arise due to an interplay between sputtering and surface diffusion. The 1.5 keV Ar atoms with a flux of 14.8 mA/cm2 are used in the present study. The InP(100) samples were bombarded at an incidence angle of 45° to the normal at a base pressure of 1 × 10−6 Torr at room temperature with fluences varying from 4 × 1016 to 3.2 × 1017 atoms/cm2. The rippled InP(100) surface was characterized with AFM. An increase in the ripple wavelengths, from 60 nm to 150 nm with the fluence has been observed. The width of the ripples varies from 38 nm to 128 nm and ripple amplitude varies from 0.8 nm to 16 nm with increasing fluence. One can control the dimension of the ripples in nano scale by controlling the fluence. Scaling studies have been performed to understand the mechanism responsible for such kind of surface evolution. The roughness parameter, α was found to be between 0.65 to 0.75 and the growth parameter, β, as 1.14±0.12. The XPS characterization has also been employed to study the changes in the behavior of the InP with varying fluence.