We report results of a scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) investigation of hydrogen-affected restructuring process at Si(111) surfaces. The hydrogen adsorption on the 7×7 surface produced clusters on the restlayer involving both Si adatoms from the initial dimer-adatom-stacking fault (DAS) structure and hydrogen atoms. Moreover, the restlayer was changed from the 7×7 to a 1×1-like structure by transferring dimer-walls. During the annealing process, the surface recovered the 7×7 structure via the formation of craters of bilayer depth. This is explained to be due to the local lack of Si atoms induced by migration-coalescence of the clusters at high temperatures.
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