Disorder-order evolution of InSb(110) studied by He scattering

The evolution of surface defects created by low energy ion bombardment on InSb(110) is studied by He beam scattering experiments. At surface temperatures above 500 K the ion erosion is found to proceed layer-by-layer without changing the stoichiometric composition of the surface. This indicates that the nucleation of surface islands driven by vacancy diffusion is faster than the ion erosion. After different doses of Ar+ ion bombardment, the surface is left in a non-equilibrium state whose time evolution is monitored by measuring the profiles of the He diffraction peaks. It is seen that the coalescence of islands proceeds with anisotropic island size distributions.