Study of InP Surfaces after Wet Chemical Treatments

In this work synchrotron radiation photoemission spectroscopy (SRPES) is used to study InP surfaces after different wet chemical treatments. All results are compared to a typical fingerprint of surface components present on an as received InP sample. It is shown that acidified (HCl and H2SO4) treatments efficiently remove the native phosphate, although components like P0, In0 and P(2±∆)+ remain present. In alkaline solution (NH4OH) oxide remains present at the surface. As an alternative treatment, the immersion into (NH4)2S was studied. This passivation treatment results in fewer surface components which suggests that a higher quality surface is obtained