Core-level
study
of
the
phase
transition
on
the
Ge(111)-c
(2
X
8)
surface
J.
Aarts,'
A.
-J.
Hoeven, andP. K.
LarsenPhilips Research Laboratories, P.O.Box80000,5600JA Eindhooen, TheNetherlands
(Received 24 December 1987)
Measurements ofthe Ge 3dcorelevel ofthe Ge(111)surface have been performed between room temperature, where the surface shows a
c(2)(8)
reconstruction, and 400'C, where the reconstruc-tion has disappeared. Analysis ofthe data shows that no significant changes occur in either thebinding energies or the relative intensities ofthe two different surface contributions. This shows
that the phase transition isofthe order-disorder type. A simple model for the occurrence of disor-der is proposed.
I.
INTRODUCTIONAt room temperature the stable reconstruction
of
theGe(111)
surface is now believed to bec
(2X8).
Usually, low-energy electron diffraction(LEED}
patterns taken from this surface do not fully comply with thec(2X8)
designation, since the expected quarter-order spots are mostly missing. ' However, it was shown by Yang andJona that the missing spots are still best explained by as-suming a
c(2X8)
insteadof
a simple(2XS)
reconstruc-tion. Later on, the missing spots were found by Phaneuf
and Webb, who showed that their typical intensity is 2 orders
of
magnitude lower than the intensityof
the in-teger order spots. The quarter-order spots were also seen by reflection high-energy electron diffraction '(RHEED}.
Finally, experiments with a scanningtunnel-ing microscope (STM) showed the presence
of
surfaceareas which can be described with a
c
(2 X8)
unit cell.The atomic structure
of
the reconstruction is not yetcompletely known, but it is virtually certain that it in-volves adatoms on top
of
the first complete layer. In theSTM measurements protrusions were found on the
sur-face which could be interpreted as adatoms. The ar-rangement
of
adatoms, which number about25% of
a monolayer, is such that this would lead directly to ac
(2 X 8)unit cell as seen with electron diffraction. ' TheSTM measurements also showed parts
of
the surface where such adatoms were organized in (2X2)
andc
(4X2)
entities. These entities might be used as buildingblocks for the full reconstruction, as proposed by Chadi
for the case
of Si(111)-(7X
7) and Si(l11)/Ge-(5 X5).
Also, the surface valence-band structure can be partly ex-plained by adatom geometries. Photoemission measure-ments
of
the Ge 3d core level on theGe(111)-c
(2 X8)sur-face show the presence
of
two different surfacecom-ponents,
'
suggesting the presenceof
two difterent typesof
surface atoms. The estimated ratioof
these types is about4:1
and this fact has been used tosuggest that the component with smaller intensity is due to theada-toms. ' The same argument has been put forward
in
3, 10
the case
of
Si(111).
"
This interpretation is not so straightforward as itappears, as will be shown in the dis-cussion. This notwithstanding, the simplest model for thec(2X8)
reconstruction appears to be an orderedstructure
of
adatoms. A rather more complex model wasrecently proposed by Takayanagi and Tanishiro' and in-cludes both adatoms and dimers in a manner similar to
the dimer-adatom-stacking-fault model for
Si(111)-(7X7).
'3 As recent medium-energy ion scattering mea-surements do not support this model, ' we shall not dis-cuss it further.Between 200and
300'C
the reconstruction transforms reversibly to a different structure. The electrondiffraction pattern
of
the high temperature phase shows a(1X1)structure, but also an enhanced amount
of
diffusescattering near positions
of
half-order spots. ' Thetransformation was therefore interpreted as taking place from an ordered state into a disordered state, which
con-sists
of
quasiperiodic(2X1)
or(2X2)
structures. In this paper we present resultsof
temperature-dependentstud-ies
of
the Ge 3d core level on theGe(ill)
surface. Wefind that going through the transition no discontinuous change in binding energies
of
the two surface components takes place; nor do we find any significant changes in the relative amountsof
surface atoms. Specifically, this im-plies that the ordered adatom structure becomes disor-dered without an appreciable change in the numberof
adatoms present, or in their position. Weshall propose a simple possibility for the occurrenceof
such disorder.II.
EXPERIMENTThe experiments were carried out in a vacuum chamber equipped with an electron energy analyzer, a
Knudsen cell for
MBE
growthof
Ge and a facility forsurface characterization by reflection high-energy
elec-tron diffraction. The base pressure
of
the cryo- and ion-pumped system was about2X
10 'torr.
This systemwas attached
to
the toroidal grating monochromatorof
the A61 beam line at the ACO storage ring
(LURE,
Or-say).'5 In all experiments the angle
of
incidence 8;of
the incident radiation with respectto
the surface normal was45.
The data were taken in normal emission. Electronenergies were analyzed using a HAC-50 hemispherical analyzer
of
the Vacuum Science Workshop (Manchester,U.
K.
), equipped with a four-element lens and at the exit plane a position-sensitive detection system, consistingof
two channel plates for arnplification and aresistive anodefor detection. ' The decoding
of
the positional informa-tion from the resistive anode was performed by Canberraelectronics in a configuration as described in
Ref.
17.
The experiments were mainly performed at aphoton en-ergy
of
55 eV, which was, in our experiments, the best compromise between intensity from the monochromatorand surface sensitivity (the electron escape depth at this energy isabout 6
A).
Clean surfaces were prepared by growing a bufFer layer
of
Ge on aGe(ill)
surface. The surface normalof
the substrates used was oriented along the(111)
directionta
within a misorientationof
0.
05'.
The growth tempera-tureof
the buffer layer was about550'C.
After coolingthe substrate
to
20'C
a sharpRHEED
pattern was al-ways found, showing the three domainsof
thec(2X8)
structure and including the —,'-order spots.
It
was found,however, that valence-band spectra taken directly after
growth were not yet
of
high quality. The sharpness and intensityof
the features could be increased considerably by annealing the sample for several hours at500'C,
which we ascribeto
the increaseof
local atomic order on the surface.III.
DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTSA. Line-shape analysis
Before analyzing the spectra, which were measured
over a range
of
8eV, the data were corrected for aback-ground which turned out
to
consistof
secondary elec-trons andof
asmall contributionof
the Auger MVV tran-sition. In our experiments this transition lies around a ki-netic energyof
19.
5eV,which is1.
5eV below the kinetic energyof
electrons emitted from theGe
3d state when they are measured with photonsof
55 eV (the bulk bind-ing energyof
the 3d electrons in about29.
5 eV,thepho-toelectric threshold isabout
4.
5 eV}. Due tothe unusual shapeof
the background it was not possible to make aline-shape analysis by including a single background in the fitting function, although this is commonly thought
to give better results. ' Instead the background was
emulated by fitting one parabola to the measured
back-ground on each side (low and high binding energy side)
of
the spectrum and joining these in the middleof
the fitted interval with the constraintof
continuous values for the functions and their first derivatives in that point. Thisprocedure turned out
to
work well as was found by com-paring its results with resultsof
measurements at apho-ton energy
of 60
eV, and with results from the literature.However, small discrepancies between the measured line shape and results
of
the fitting procedure, which were often found at the high binding energy sideof
the spec-trum, may be due to the background subtraction. Aftersubtraction, the spectra were analyzed with a
curve-fitting program based on minimizing the sum
of
the squaresof
the differences between data points and fittedcurve. This sum
of
residues was further used as acri-terion for the goodness
of
the fit.As stated in the introduction, the full line shape is a
sum
of
contributions from bulk atoms and differently bound surface atoms. This leads to two parameters foreach contribution, namely the binding energy and the in-tensity. In the case
of
Ge, photoemission from the3d'
level results inasplitting
of
the line dueto
spin-orbitcou-pling in the 3d final state. This splitting ischaracterized
by two parameters, the energy difference
5,
,
and the in-tensity ratio ("branchingratio")
R between thecom-ponents. These were assumed
to
be the same for allcon-tributions
to
the measured line. Every line is further broadened by the finite lifetimeof
the final (hale) state.For
semiconductors the broadening can be taken as sim-ple Lorentzian [with a full width at half maximum(FWHM} called WL
]
and the same width was assumedfor each contribution. The Lorentzian was convoluted
with a Gaussian distribution (FWHM called WG)
representing the instrumental uncertainties.
For
several measurements on clean surfaces, values for the spin-orbit splitting and branching ratio were optimized and the values for these parameters were then used in analyzing the measurements at higher temperatures. Threecontri-butions were taken
to
describe the full line, which meansthat sixfree parameters were used for the fits.
B.
ResultsFigure 1 shows a core-level spectrum measured on a
clean
Ge(111)
surface. In this figure the zeroof
energy is taken at the bulk binding energyof
the 3d5&2 line. Theresult
of
the best fit to this line shape using three different contributions isalso shown. The values used forh.
.
.
R,
8'L,
and 8'G are given in TableI.
Some remarks on these values can be made. Analysis showed that good fits could be obtained by using a branching ratioof
0.
58.
This is somewhat lower than the expected ratioof
0.
67,Ge(
0
Eb;„d
(eV)TABLE
I.
Analysis parameters and results ofdeconvolutionofthe Ge 3d core level measured at room temperature and at
h
v=
55eV. Left-hand side: Optimized values ofthe spin-orbit splitting (b..
.
), branching ratio (R) and lifetime broadening( Wz ). The instrumental width is given by 8'G. Right-hand
side: Binding energy shifts ofthe two surface contributions rel-ative to the position ofthe bulk component (EE&,LE2)and
in-tensity ratios (seetext).
hEp
(ev)
0.75—
0.
70;
abnormal treatment,
~
prolonged at300'G,Qprolonged at400't
S,
.
(eV) R W, (eV)g
G (eV) 0.58 0.58 0.18 0.35 ZE, (eV)aE,
(eV) Is stotIs,
~Is,—
0.27+0.01—
0.73+0.
02 0.43 0.19 hE) {eV) 0. 30-0.25—which may be due to the relative nearness
of
the photon energyto
the photoemission threshold. ' Values lowerthan the statistical value have been reported before for
Ge (Refs. 10and 20) and measurements we performed on
Ge(001) showed a decided dependence
of
the branchingratio on the photon energy. This may partly explain the
different values in use in the literature.
For
the spin-orbit splitting, values between0.
55and0.
59eV provedto
give almost the same minimal sumof
residues. Thecorre-sponding fits did not differ in the value forbE& 2but gave
slightly different values for
I,
23.
This relative insensi-tivityof
the criterion for goodnessof
fitto
5,
,
is due tothe fact that the spin-orbit splitting israther larger than the energy difference between bulk binding energy and binding energy
of
the main surface component S&.All the above values were used foranalysis
of
measure-ments at higher temperatures. The spectrumof Fig.
1was analyzed assuming a bulk contribution
(B)
and two surface contributions(S,
,S2)
at energies shifted with respect tothe bulk component. The resultof
the analysis is shown in Fig. 1and in TableI.
In TableI
the ratio be-tween the surface emission and the total emission, given by (Iq+Is
)/(I&+I&
+Is
) is calledI&/I„,
; the ratiobetween the two surface components is called
Iz
/I&.
2 1
All numbers show that our description
of
the core level is essentially the same as given earlier.'
In the next step, experiments were performed at
sub-strate temperatures
of 200'C
(below the phase transition),300'C
(above the phase transition), and400'C.
The tran-sition was monitored byRHEED.
The line shapes were found tochange only in a minor fashion. In order tosee whether the changes might be due to temperature broadening alone, fits were performed for fixed valuesof
hE,
2 (the values obtained for the experiment at20'C)
atdifferent values
of
the bulk binding energy (to allow forpossible drifts in analyzer electronics) while letting WL
free. In these cases the minimal sums
of
residues werefound
to
be considerably larger than those obtained for the measurements at20'C;
the lowest value was obtainedfor the same bulk binding energy as at 20
C.
Furtheranalysis was performed by fixing 8'L at the value found
at
20'C
and lettinghE,
2 free. The best fits now againgave values for the sum
of
residuesof
the samemagni-100 200
T{oc)
300 400
FIG.
2. Binding energy shifts hE& and EE2 ofsurface com-ponents S& and S&as a function ofsubstrate temperature.X,
regular measurements;6,
prolonged annealing at 300'C and cooled to 20'C;o,
prolonged annealing at400'C and cooled to20'C.
TABLE
II.
Results ofanalysis ofthe Ge 3d core level mea-sured at hv=55 eV at different temperatures giving energy shifts hE& and AE& for the surface components S& and S2andintensity ratios (seetext).
T (C)
20 210 300 300' 400 400' 20b LE) (eV)—
0.
27—
0.30—
0.29—
0.32—
0.32—
0.32—
0.
27&E,
(eV)—
0.
73—
0.
74—
0.72—
0.
72—
0.
72—
0.72—
0.72 0.43 0.41 0.49 0.44 0.48 0.50 0.42Is
/Is, 0.19 0.210.
27 0.170.
23 0.24 0.19 'After prolonged annealing.Cooled down after annealing at400'C.
tude as found for fits
of
the measurements at20'C.
Theensuing changes in the energy shifts
hE,
2 as functionof
temperature are shown in
Fig.
2 and TableII.
The error bars inFig.
2 reQect our estimateof
the uncertainty in the determinationof
the energy shifts by the fittingpro-cedure. The contribution
S,
~oves
continuouslyto
lower binding energies with increasing temperature. At
400'C,
the change with respectto
20'C
isabout 50meV.The binding energy
of
Szremains constant within theac-curacy
of
the experiment. The intensity ratiosI,
/I„,
and
Is
/Is
are collected in TableII.
They appear toin-2 1
crease somewhat with increasing temperature. In order
to
make certain that the experiment probeda
stationary20'C
and the line shape was measured again. The se-quence400-20'C
is shown inFig.
3 and actually givesthe best demonstration
of
the changes in line shape foundat higher temperatures.
It
should be noted that evenafter the long time taken by the experiment at
400'C,
theline shape at
20'C
is thatof
a clean surface. The line shapes normalized to the same total area and the difference between the lines are plotted inFig.
3.
At 400 Cthere isa clear transferof
weightto
lower binding energy which partly obscures the componentS2.
The full analysisof
the lines is given inFig. 4
and shows that the weight transfer can be described by a shiftof
50meVof
the binding energyof
S&and some increase in the surfacecontributions relative
to
the bulk intensity.IV. DISCUSSIGN CO C
I
C Ge(11
3d
core
I OcOC
As the basis for our discussion
of
the above results we use the simple modelof
ordered adatoms for thec
(2)& 8)reconstructed as shown in
Fig. 5.
This model iscon-sistent with the results from electron diffraction and
STM measurements. In the figure the adatoms are drawn in the so-called hollow position, centered above atoms in the fourth layer. With respect tothe bonds with the first layer an equivalent site is the
"on-top"
position, centered above atoms in the second layer, and the same ordered structure can be drawn with"on-top"
atoms. In fact, it is not yet clear which site is favored by the ada-toms, although experiments on surfaces with a submono-layer coverageof
elements such as Snor
Pb indicate a preferenceof
the adsorbed atom for the on-top site.However, the actual configuration is not relevant
to
the discussion given below.It
can be seen inFig.
5 that both for the adatoms andfor the atoms in the first layer the binding geometry is different
fro~
the bulk binding geometry, which may leadtoshifts in the core level binding energy. This isclear for
0
Ebind(eV}FIG.
4. Data and deconvolution ofthe Ge3dcorelevel after prolonged annealing at 400'C and after cooling to 20'C. Thebinding energy is relative tothe bulk 3d&&2line.
the adatoms, which have three bonds toatoms in the first layer and, in principle, one dangling bond.
For
the atoms in the first layer two diFerent geometries occur. Percon-ventional unit cell twelve
of
the sixteen atoms are boundto the four adatoms. The binding geometry for these
atoms differs from the bulk due
to
the angleof
the bondGe (111)— c(2xs) adatom model
~ adatom o 1 layer x
2"
layerGe
(111)
0 x l xA.
EY O X X II X CY 0 x l x x l x X IIX
0—
CO C CI
O I 2E„„,
(ev) 0 x tl xA.
CI' 0 X 0 x ltx
A.
CY 'Cl X o oFIG.
3. (a) Ge 3d core level spectra at 20'C (full line) and 400 C(dashed line). The lines are smoothed through the data points. The intensities are scaled toequal total areas. Thebind-ing energy is relative to the bulk 3d5&& line. (b)Difference plot
ofthe corelevel at20 Cand the corelevel at400 C.
FIG.
5. Model ofthec(2X8)
structure on the Ge(111) sur-facedue toordered adatoms. Solid lines show (parts of) conven-tional unit cells. Two differently oriented unit cells out ofthreeequivalent possibilities are indicated. At point A the change in
binding geometry ofan adatom due toajump fjom a hollow site
with the adatom. The remaining four atoms, often called the rest atoms, again have adangling bond. So,
if
no re-laxationof
second layer atoms is assumed, three separate surface contributions to the measured spectrum may beexpected. As has been shown, two surface components
can be analyzed conclusively, which means that two
con-tributions have such a small energy difference that they
are not resolved by the experiment.
It
wouldof
course be possible tofit the spectrum with a totalof
four lines, add-ing two variables, but it is doubtfulif
a physical meaning could be attached tothe resulting values. What still can be discussed isto
which typeof
atoms the different shifts belong.From the intensity ratio
of
S& and Sz it isobvious that Szbelongs toeither the adatoms or the rest atoms sothatS& comprises the remaining two types. From the
com-parison
of
surface band structure measurements onGe(111)
(Ref. 8) with surface band-structure measure-ments onSi(ill)
(Ref. 21) and with calculations on Si(111)
(Ref.22), it was inferred that a charge transfer takes place from the adatoms tothe rest atoms. This is actual-ly again in accordance with the STM measurements since the adatom bumps on the surface were found by tunneling into empty states. The effectof
such a charge transfer on the core level binding energy can be estimated by following Brennan etal.
in assuming that this isthe same as the effectof
core-electron charge transfer on valence-band electrons. This last transfer can be mim-icked by adding protons to the nuclear charge; the bind-ing energy changes are then reAected in changes in the sp hybridization energy. Using the dataof
Harrison~for the series
Ga
(nuclear chargeZ
—
1), Ge(Z),
As(Z+1),
a valueof 1.
9eV per transferred electron can beestimated.On the basis
of
this argument a higher binding energy and a positive shift is expected for the adatom, and a smaller binding energy, resulting in a negative shift forthe rest atom. The charge transfer argument therefore does not give a complete picture since no positive shifts are found. One further contribution to the energy shift is certainly a surface Madelung-type potential due to the same charge transfer. Unfortunately, without more data
on the actual charge distribution it isnot possible to esti-mate this effect. There is, however, a further argument
for assigning the shift Sz to the rest atoms and not to the adatorns. Core-level measurements performed by
DiCen-zo et
al.
onGe(111)
covered with submonolayer amountsof
Sn show that the intensityof
cornpoment Szremains constant upon increasing Sn coverage, while the intensity
of SI
decreases by about25%.
Recent surface x-ray diffraction measurements by Pedersen etal.
on this system show that the Sn mainly occupies adatom po-sitions (substituting Ge atoms) while the Ge rest atoms remaining present. Contrary to what is currently be-lieved, we argue therefore that the large shiftof
Sz isdueto the rest atoms. The shift produced by the adatoms and the remaining first-layer atoms is contained in the contribution
S,
.
Turning now to the temperature-dependence measure-ment it is straightforward
to
conclude that there is no ap-preciable rearrangementof
atoms above the transition temperature: both the amountof
adatoms and theamount
of
rest atoms remain roughly the same. Thetransition found in the electron diffraction experiments appears to be due to the onset
of
disorder in the adatomstructure, but the adatorns do not move to widely
differing binding positions. The simplest possibility
to
ac-count for such disorder is that the adatom moves from
the hollow to the on-top position (or vice versa, depend-ing on the starting position). As is shown in
Fig.
5 atpoint A, only one bond needs
to
be switched for such ajump, while a dangling bond is always free to build the new configuration. The small changes in intensity and energy shift witnessed for
S,
are then possibly due tosmall differences in binding energy for the adatoms at the two sites and to changes in the attenuation
of
the signal from atoms below the adatom layer. Disorder by the above mechanism does not leadto
structures as proposed by Phaneuf and Webb to existjust above the phasetran-sition. On the other hand, any jump
of
an atom will leavebehind different kinds
of
(2&(2) entities, especially so since there are three differentc(2X8)
domains. Thediffraction pattern
of
such a random setof
(2X2)entities, which is not the same as a single(2X2)
reconstructionwith antiphase walls (see Ref. 3),may still approach the observations. As a final remark, note that
if
an adatom neighboring the one at point A also makes a jurnp, the adatorn at A canjump to anew hollow position. In otherwords, the phase transition signifies the opening
of
possi-ble paths for diffusion.It
is therefore probably nocoin-cidence that around
250'C
the growthof
Ge byrnolecu-lar beam epitaxy starts to take place in bilayer fashion, as shown recently by
RHEED
experiments.V. SUMMARY
We have performed Ge 3dcore-level measurements on clean surfaces
of Ge(111)
between20'C,
where thesur-face shows a
c(2X8)
reconstruction, and400'C,
where the surface is apparent1)&1.
Deconvolutionof
the mea-sured lines into abulk component and two surfacecom-ponents shows that the surface components do not change appreciably either in intensity or in binding ener-gy shift.
It
is concluded that the phase transition fromc(2X8)
to apparent(1X1)
is due to disorder occurring in an originally ordered adatom structure. Using a sim-ple model for the reconstructed surface, a mechanism producing such disorder isdiscussed.ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank W. Gerits for his technical assistance prior tothe measurements, and the technical staff at
LURE
for'Present address: Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory, University of
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