High-resolution electron energy-loss spectroscopy at epitaxially grown GaAs(100)

High-Resolution Electron Energy-Loss Spectroscopy (HREELS) is shown to be a very sensitive tool to investigate the space-charge regime of n-respectively p-type semiconductors. The most simple model we applied to fit experimental spectra is based on a step-like distribution of free carriers with the Drude dielectric response function. In this case, the dispersion of surface plasmon excitations is neglected, but it is considered in the Thomas-Fermi and the Debye-Hückel models. We use these models to fit HREELS-spectra, obtained from heavily Si-doped GaAs(100), which was grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE). A comparison shown that the Drude model overestimates both the free-carrier concentration and the plasmon damping factor. The use of a more realistic smooth free-carrier profile, obtained by the self-consistent solution of the Schrödinger and Poisson equations, leads to plasmon excitations with lower frequencies. Besides Ohmic damping, the calculations show that Landau damping should be incorporated in order to obtain a better fit, particularly at intermediate frequencies.