10 CHAPTER 1.

PHYSICS AND PROPERTIES OF SEMICONDUCTORS-A REVIEW

Fig. 2 Miller indices of some important planes in a cubic crystal.

silicon, a single-element semiconductor, the easiest breakage or cleavage planes are

the { 111} planes. In contrast, gallium arsenide, which has a similar lattice structure
but also has a slight ionic component in the bonds, cleaves on { 1lo} planes.
Three primitive basis vectors, a, b, and c of a primitive cell, describe a crystalline
solid such that the crystal structure remains invariant under translation through any
vector that is the sum of integral multiples of these basis vectors. In other words, the
direct lattice sites can be defined by the set12
R = ma+nb+pc (1)
where m, n, andp are integers.

1.2.2 Reciprocal Lattice

For a given set of the direct basis vectors, a set of reciprocal lattice basis vectors a*,
b*,c* can be defined as

Table 1 Miller Indices and Their Represented Plane or Direction of a Crystal Surface
Miller
Description of plane or direction
Indices
(hkl) For a plane that intercepts llh, llk, 1ll on the x-, y-, and z-axis, respectively.
(hkl) For a plane that intercepts the negative x-axis.
{ hkl} For a full set of planes of equivalent symmetry, such as { 100) for (100), (0 lo),
( O O l ) , ( i O O ) , ( O i O ) , and(O0i)incubicsymmetry.
[hkl] For a direction of a crystal such as [ 1001 for the x-axis.
(hkl) For a full set of equivalent directions.
[hklm] For a plane in a hexagonal lattice (such as wurtzite) that intercepts llh, llk, 1/l,
llm on the q-, a*-, q-, andz-axis, respectively (Fig. lg).