Thermal stability and structure of the equilibrium clean si(103) surface

Zheng Gai, W. S. Yang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

20 Scopus citations

Abstract

The Si(103) surface is studied by means of low-energy electron diffraction and scanning tunneling microscopy. It has been found that the clean Si(103) surface is stable against faceting, that at the room temperature the thermally equilibrium clean Si(103) surface is, surprisingly, rough but semiconducting and its topmost thin layer is disordered, and that the rough morphology is not a result of the thermodynamic roughening transition but because it has a lower internal energy than that of the flat surface. That Si(103) neither facets to Si(113) facets nor consists of Si(113) nanofacets indicates that it does not belong to the Si(113) family; in contrast, Ge(103) does belong to the Ge(113) family. This difference supports the conclusion that the atomic structure of the Ge(113) surface is different from that of the Si(113) surface.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)13003-13008
Number of pages6
JournalPhysical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics
Volume59
Issue number20
DOIs
StatePublished - 1999
Externally publishedYes

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