Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2011
In this paper, we report on the use of cross-sectional scanning tunneling microscopy (XSTM) to analyze several aspects of MBE-grown III-V quantum structures on an atomic scale. In particular, we discuss our recent work to identify various atomic species within the same chemical group (e.g. Al and Ga within the group Ill sublattice of AlGaAs) thereby allowing the determination of atomic roughness at GaAs/A1GaAs interfaces and alloy clustering in AlGaAs. We demonstrate and discuss the sensitivity of the STM to individual dopants in the near surface layers, as well as to the local carrier concentration. Lastly, we use XSTM to obtain images of cross-sectioned GaAs/AIGaAs quantum well wires with atomic detail.