The amazing story of semiconductor surface structures

A brief indication of the history of the determination and prediction of the structure of semiconductor surfaces is given. Only clean surfaces are considered, although adsorbate structures exhibit analogous features. Many of these surfaces are reconstructed, i.e., the symmetry of their surface structure is lower than that of the corresponding bulk lattice plane. During the 1980s and 1990s, the detailed atomic geometries of many of these structures were determined. They exhibit a wide variety of atomic motifs, many of which are not familiar from either small molecule geometries or solid state structures. Theoretical predictions exist for a few of the most heavily studied structures, but even in these cases not all the details of the structures are accepted. The enormous literature on this topic can be comprehended by recognizing that the surface regions of semiconductors constitute a new class of two dimensional chemical compounds, restricted by the requirement that they fit epitaxically on the bulk crystalline substrate. Five principles govern the formation of these compounds for clean tetrahedrally coordinated semiconductors, guiding even a novice to a rudimentary understanding of the origin of the observed rich variety of surface structures. In the case of the cleavage surfaces additional scaling laws are satisfied which further buttress the concept that these surfaces are two dimensional compounds governed by coordination chemistry considerations which are distinct from those appropriate for either molecules or bulk solids.