OPTICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF SEMICONDUCTOR SURFACES AND INTERFACES

Recent developments in optical spectroscopy applied to semiconductor surfaces and interfaces are reviewed. It is shown that, by exploiting the underlying physics of the various techniques, or by exploiting special material structures, submonolayer sensitivity can be obtained using photons as both probe and signal. Examples of the use of spectroscopic ellipsometry, surface differential reflectivity, surface photoabsorption, reflection anisotropy spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, photoluminescence spectroscopy, second-harmonic generation and sum-frequency generation are described, with emphasis on studies of systems which have been well-characterised using conventional surface probes.