Morphology of monatomic step edges on vicinal Si(001)

Zandvliet, H.J.W. and Elswijk, H.B. (1993) Morphology of monatomic step edges on vicinal Si(001). Physical review B: Condensed matter, 48 (19). pp. 14269-14275. ISSN 1095-3795

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Abstract:	The roughness of monatomic A- and B-type step edges on 0.5° misoriented Si(001) has been analyzed on an atomic scale with scanning tunneling microscopy. On small length scales, measured along the step edge (<200 Å), one-dimensional random-walk behavior is observed for both types of step edges. For the rough B-type step edge we also found evidence for waviness of the edge. The period of this wave is about 100 dimer-row spacings (≊750–800 Å). The energetic step-step interaction and entropic repulsion, which both scale as 1/L2 (L is the average terrace length), are estimated to be about 0.03–0.06 and 0.2 meV per dimer-row spacing, respectively, for a 0.5° misoriented surface. These interactions are approximately three orders of magnitude smaller compared to the kink formation energies which are 0.1–0.2 eV. Despite the weak strength of energetic and entropic step-step interactions, these long-range interactions have a profound effect on the step-edge morphology, e.g., the distribution of terrace lengths and the long-range waving of the rough B-step edge.
Item Type:	Article
Copyright:	© 1993 The American Physical Society
Faculty:	Science and Technology (TNW)
Research Group:	Physics of Interfaces and Nanomaterials (PIN)
Link to this item:	http://purl.utwente.nl/publications/73160
Official URL:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.48.14269
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