The band alignment of semiconductor-metal interfaces plays a vital role in modern electronics, but remains difficult to predict theoretically and measure experimentally. For interfaces with strong band bending a main difficulty originates from the in-built potentials which lead to broadened and shifted band spectra in spectroscopy measurements. In this work we present a method to resolve the band alignment of buried semiconductor-metal interfaces using core level photoemission spectroscopy and self-consistent electronic structure simulations. As a proof of principle we apply the method to a clean in-situ grown InAs(100)/Al interface, a system with a strong in-built band bending. Due to the high signal-to-noise ratio of the core level spectra the proposed methodology can be used on previously inaccessible semiconductor-metal interfaces and support targeted design of novel hybrid devices and form the foundation for a interface parameter database for specified synthesis processes of semiconductor-metal systems.
@article{arxiv.1910.02735,
title = {Band bending profile and band offset extraction at semiconductor-metal interfaces},
author = {Sergej Schuwalow and Niels B. M. Schroeter and Jan Gukelberger and Candice Thomas and Vladimir Strocov and John Gamble and Alla Chikina and Marco Caputo and Jonas Krieger and Geoffrey C. Gardner and Matthias Troyer and Gabriel Aeppli and Michael J. Manfra and Peter Krogstrup},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1910.02735},
year = {2019}
}