A compact ultrahigh-vacuum system for the in situ investigation of III/V semiconductor surfaces

A compact ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) system has been built to study growth and properties of III/V semiconductor surfaces and nanostructures. The system allows one to grow III/V semiconductor surfaces by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and analyze their surface by a variety of surface analysis techniques. The geometric structure is examined by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), low-energy electron diffraction and reflection high-energy electron diffraction. The electronic properties of the surfaces are studied by angular resolved photoemission either in the laboratory using a helium discharge lamp or at the Berlin Synchrotron Radiation Facility BESSY. In order to meet the space restriction at BESSY the system dimensions are kept very small. A detailed description of the apparatus and the sample handling system is given. For the UHV-STM (Park Scientific Instruments, VP2) a new, versatile tip handling mechanism has been developed. It allows the transfer of tips out of the chamber and furthermore, the in situ tip cleaning by electron annealing. In addition, another more reliable in situ tip-preparation technique operating the STM in the field emission regime is described. The ability of the system is shown by an atomically resolved STM image of the c(4x4) reconstructed GaAs(001) surface. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0034-6748(00)04102-2].