Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-t5pn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T00:07:13.611Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Metastable Structural Surface Excitations and Concerted ad Atom Motions: A Stm Study of Atomic Motions Within a Semiconductor Surface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2011

Jene Golovchenko ,
Ing-Shouh Hwang ,
Eric Ganz  and
Silva K. Theiss
Jene Golovchenko
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Division of Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138
Ing-Shouh Hwang
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Division of Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138
Eric Ganz
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, 116 Church Street S.E., Minneapolis, MN 55455
Silva K. Theiss
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Division of Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138
Get access

Abstract

Knowledge about atomic scale motions is essential to the understanding of dynamical phenomena on surfaces, such as diffusion, phase transitions, and epitaxial growth. We demonstrate that the addition of a very small number of Pb atoms to a Ge(111) surface reduces the energy barrier for activated processes, thus allowing one to observe concerted atomic motions and metastable structures on this surface near room temperature using a tunneling microscope. The activation energy for surface diffusion of isolated substitutional Pb atoms in Ge(111)-c(2×8) was measured by observing individual atomic interchanges from 24°C to 79°C. We also observed the formation and annihilation of metastable structural surface excitations, which are associated with large numbers of germanium surface atoms in one row of the c(2×8) reconstruction shifting along that row like beads on an abacus. The effect provides a new mechanism for atomic transport on semiconductor surfaces and can explain a number of other observed phenomena associated with Ge(111) surfaces, including the surface diffusion of Pb atoms.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 280: Symposium B – Evolution of Surface and Thin Film Microstructure , 1992 , 79
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

1. Ehrlich, G. and Hudda, F.G., J. Chem. Phys. 44, 1039 (1966);Google Scholar
Ehrlich, G., J. Chem. Phys. 44, 1050 (1966);Google Scholar
Kellogg, G.L., Tsong, T.T., and Cowan, P., Surf. Sci. 70, 485 (1978);Google Scholar
Tsong, T., Rep. Prog. Phys. 51, 759 (1988);Google Scholar
Kellogg, G.L. and Feibelman, P.J., Phys. Rev. Lett. 64, 3143 (1990);CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kellogg, G.L., Phys. Rev. Lett. 67, 216 (1991);Google Scholar
Tsong, T.T. and Chen, C., Phys. Rev. B 43, 2007 (1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2. Lagally, M.G., Mo, Y.-W., Kariotis, R., Swartzentruber, B.S., and Webb, M.B., in Kinetics of Ordering and Growth at Surfaces edited by Lagally, M.G. (Plenum, New York, 1990) p. 145;Google Scholar
Elswijk, H. B., Hoeven, A.J., van Loenen, E.J., and Dijkamp, D., J. Vac. Sci. Tech. B 9, 451 (1991);Google Scholar
Feenstra, R.M. and Lutz, M. A., Surf. Sci. 243, 151 (1991);Google Scholar
Mo, Y.-W., Kleiner, J., Webb, M.B., and Lagally, M.G., Phys. Rev. Lett. 66, 1998 (1991).Google Scholar
3. Kitamura, S., Sato, T., and Iwatsuki, M., Nature 351, 215 (1991).Google Scholar
4. Feenstra, R. M., Slavin, A.J., Held, G.A., and Lutz, M.A., Phys Rev. Lett. 66, 3257 (1991).Google Scholar
5. Ganz, E., Theiss, S.K., Hwang, I.-S., Golovchenko, J., Phys. Rev. Lett. 68, 1567 (1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6. Hwang, I.-S. and Golovchenko, J., Science 258, 1119 (1992).Google Scholar
7. Kaxiras, E. (private communication).Google Scholar
8. Pandey, K.C., Phys Rev. Lett. 57, 2287 (1986);Google Scholar
Pandey, K.C. and Kaxiras, E., Phys. Rev. Lett. 66, 915 (1991).Google Scholar