The wave function of a hole bound to an individual Mn acceptor in GaAs is spatially mapped by scanning tunneling microscopy at room temperature and an anisotropic, crosslike shape is observed. The spatial structure is compared with that from an envelope-function, effective mass model and from a tight-binding model. This demonstrates that anisotropy arising from the cubic symmetry of the GaAs crystal produces the crosslike shape for the hole wave function. Thus the coupling between Mn dopants in GaMnAs mediated by such holes will be highly anisotropic.

The charge state of individually addressable impurities in semiconductor material was manipulated with a scanning tunneling microscope. The manipulation was fully controlled by the position of the tip and the voltage applied between tip and sample. The experiments were performed at low temperature on the (110) surface of silicon doped GaAs. Silicon donors up to 1 nm below the surface can be reversibly switched between their neutral and ionized state by the local potential induced by the tip. By using ultrasharp tips, the switching process occurs close enough to the impurity to be observed as a sharp circular feature surrounding the donor. By utilizing the controlled manipulation, we were able to map the Coulomb potential of a single donor at the semiconductor-vacuum interface.

Group IV semiconductor optoelectronic devices are now possible by using strain-free direct band gap GeSn alloys grown on a Ge/Si virtual substrate with Sn contents above 9%. Here, we demonstrate the growth of Ge/GeSn core/shell nanowire arrays with Sn incorporation up to 13% and without the formation of Sn clusters. The nanowire geometry promotes strain relaxation in the GeSn shell and limits the formation of structural defects. This results in room-temperature photoluminescence centered at 0.465 eV and enhanced absorption above 98%. Therefore, direct band gap GeSn grown in a nanowire geometry holds promise as a low-cost and high-efficiency material for photodetectors operating in the short-wave infrared and thermal imaging devices.

We present a cross-sectional scanning-tunneling microscopy investigation of the shape, size, and composition of InAs quantum dots in a GaAs matrix, grown by molecular beam epitaxy at low growth rate. From the dimensional analysis we conclude that the investigated quantum dots have an average height of 5 nm, a square base of 18 nm oriented along ͓010͔ and ͓100͔ and the shape of a truncated pyramid. From outward relaxation and lattice constant profiles we conclude that the dots consist of an InGaAs alloy and that the indium concentration increases linearly in the growth direction. Our results justify the predictions obtained from previous photocurrent measurements on similar structures and the used theoretical model.

We measured the ionization threshold voltage of individual impurities close to a semiconductor-vacuum interface, where we use the STM tip to ionize individual donors. We observe a reversed order of ionization with depth below the surface, which proves that the binding energy is enhanced towards the surface. This is in contrast to the predicted reduction for a Coulombic impurity in the effective mass approach. We can estimate the binding energy from the ionization threshold and show experimentally that in the case of silicon doped gallium arsenide the binding energy gradually increases over the last 1.2 nm below the (110) surface.