Early stage in low-energy ion-induced damage on InP(110) surface

The change in the short-range order created by ion milling in the near surface region of InP single crystals wasinvestigated by primary beam diffraction modulated electron emission (PDMEE). The very early stage of the damagecreation by low energy (0.6-1 keV) Ar ions in normal and oblique incidence was studied. A simple model based on theweighted combination of perfectly crystalline and completely amorphous regions was used to model the experimental results.Evidence of a subsurface nucleation of the amorphization process was found. We also found that the total sputtering yield ismarkedly dependent on the ion dose, being on the undamaged surface much larger than its steady state value. Low energyelectron diffraction (LEED) measurements were also performed to correlate long-range and short-range order removal by ionbombardment. Finally, the ion damage on the GaAs and InP surfaces was comparatively discussed.