Field effects and surface states in second harmonic generation at n-GaAs(hkl) electrodes

Second harmonic generation from n-doped GaAs(111)-A, GaAs(111)-B and GaAs(110) electrodes in sulfuric acid solution has been compared at an incident wavelength of 1064nm over a potential range, where Faradaic process are excluded. In the p-in/p-out polarization configuration, the rotational anisotropy of the SH response reflects the symmetry of the crystal surface. The isotropic part of the response depends significantly on the applied electric field in the space-charge region, suggesting that the dominant part of the SH response is generated in the near-surface depletion region. The effects of the applied potential on the isotropic amplitude of the SH-signal show, however, that the high density of the surface/interface states at the Fermi level, revealed in impedance spectroscopy, may play an important role as well.