Vacancy dynamics and reorganization on bromine-etched Si(100)-(2 x 1) surfaces

Halogen etching of Si(100) surfaces has long been considered to involve the selective removal of atoms from an essentially static surface. Here we show that vacancy sites produced by etching are mobile at elevated temperature and rearrange to form features that were considered to be the direct products of etching. We demonstrate that the etch features observed at different temperatures are not due to different mechanisms. Rather, kinetic etch products formed at low temperatures are transformed into thermodynamically more stable features at higher temperatures.     

Reflectometric study of surface states and oxygen adsorption on clean Si(100) and (110) surfaces

External differential reflection measurements were carried out on clean Si(100) and (110) surfaces in the photon energy range of 1.0 to 3.0 eV at 300 and 80 K. The results for Si(100) at 300 K showed two peaks in the joint density of states curve, which sharpened at 80 K. One peak at 3.0 ± 0.2 eV can be attributed to optical transitions from a filled surface states band near the top of the valence band to empty bulk conduction band levels. The other peak at 1.60 ± 0.05 eV may be attributed to transitions to an empty surface states band in the energy gap. This result favours the asymmetric dimer model for the Si(100) surface. For the (110) surface at 300 K only one peak was found at 3.0 ± 0.2 eV. At 80 K the peak height diminished by a factor of two. Oxygen adsorption in the submonolayer region on the clean Si(100) surface appeared to proceed in a similar way as on the Si(111) 7 × 7 surface. For the Si(110) surface the kinetics of the adsorption process at 80 K deviated clearly. The binding state of oxygen on this surface at 80 K appeared to be different from that on the same surface at 300 K.     

Tunneling electron induced bromine hopping on Si(100)-(2 x 1)

Tunneling electrons from the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope can be used to induce adatom hopping on Br-terminated Si(100)-(2x1) at low current and without voltage pulses. Hopping does not occur when electrons tunnel from a sample to a tip. The threshold energy is +0.8 V, and tunneling spectroscopy shows antibonding Si-Br states 0.8 eV above the Fermi level. Electron capture in these states is a necessary condition for hopping, but repulsive adsorbate interactions that lower the activation barrier are also required. Such interactions are strong near saturation for Br but are insufficient when the coverage is low or when Br is replaced by Cl.     

Low energy electron diffraction and electron spectroscopy studies of the clean (110) and (100) titanium dioxide (rutile) crystal surfaces

Low-energy electron diffraction (LEED), Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), electron energy loss (ELS) and ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopies (UPS) were used to study the structures, compositions and electron state distributions of clean single crystal faces of titanium dioxide (rutile). LEED showed that both the (110) and (100) surfaces are stable, the latter giving rise to three distinct surface structures, viz. (1 × 3), (1 × 5) and (1 × 7) that were obtained by annealing an argon ion-bombarded (100) surface at ~600,800 and 1200° C respectively. AES showed the decrease of the $\text{O(510 eV)}\text{Ti(380 eV)}$ peak ratio from ~1.7 to ~1.3 in going from the (1 × 3) to the (1 × 7) surface structure. Electron energy loss spectra obtained from the (110) and (100)?(1 × 3) surfaces are similar, with surface-sensitive transitions at 8.2, 5.2 and 2.4 eV. The energy loss spectrum from an argon or oxygen ion bombarded surface is dominated by the transition at 1.6 eV. UPS indicated that the initial state for this ELS transition is peaked at ?0.6 eV (referred to the Fermi level E_F in the photoemission spectrum, and that the 2.4 eV surface-sensitive ELS transition probably arises from the band of occupied states between the bulk valence band maximum to the Fermi level. High energy electron beams (1.6 keV 20 μA) used in AES were found to disorder clean and initially well-ordered TiO₂ surfaces. Argon ion bombardment of clean ordered TiO₂ (110) and (100)?(1 × 3) surfaces caused the work function and surface band bending to decrease by almost 1 eV and such decrease is explained as due to the loss of oxygen from the surface.     

Surface states at the clean surfaces of cleaved Si(111) and GaAs(110)

A combination of ellipsometric data on the electronic transitions from occupied to unoccupied surface states and published photoemission data on the energy distribution of the occupied surface states has been used to construct models of the surface states densities at the cleaved Si (111) and GaAs (110) surfaces.