Origin of Reflection High-Energy Electron-Diffraction Intensity Oscillations during Molecular-Beam Epitaxy: A Computational Modeling Approach

Abstract

Temporal oscillations in the specular beam of reflection high-energy electron diffraction (RHEED) provide the primary method of monitoring growth by molecular-beam epitaxy. We develop a model to investigate the origin of these oscillations with which, by monitoring the step density of a growing sample, we are able to reproduce all of the principal features of recent RHEED measurements. Our work demonstrates the considerable advantages in adoption of simple monatomic growth models instead of the complex models used for studying the growth of compound semiconductors.