Abstract
Ho silicide nanostructures were formed by the deposition of submonolayer coverages of Ho onto a clean Si(001) 2x1 surface at various substrate temperatures. Depending on the deposition temperature and coverage, the substrate surrounding the nanostructures reconstructs into either a 2x4 or 2x7 structure or a combination of the two. We use metastable de-excitation spectroscopy (He 2(3)S) to complement scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) to study these reconstructions revealing the electronic similarities between the 2x4 and 2x7 phases. The presence in the spectra of features due to hybridized Si 3s3p-Ho 6s5d bonds at the surface suggest that prominent maxima in the corresponding STM images are due to Ho atoms and that these reconstructions form as a precursor to nanowire formation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 155430 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-9 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Physical Review B |
| Volume | 78 |
| Issue number | 15 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 27 Oct 2008 |
Keywords
- ELECTRONIC-STRUCTURE
- SILICIDE NANOWIRES
- DISILICIDE NANOWIRES
- VICINAL SI(001)
- SURFACE
- GROWTH
- STM
- INTERFACE
- SI(100)
- ARRAYS