The vicinal Si(1 1 1) surface, inclined towards the ½ 1 1 2 direction, was investigated by scanning tunnelling microscopy and spot profile analysing low energy electron diffraction. It has been established that the surface, consisting of regularly spaced triple steps and (1 1 1) terraces with a width equal to that of a single unit cell of the Si(1 1 1)-7 · 7 surface structure, has the (7 7 10) orientation. An atomic model of the triple step is proposed.

Room-temperature infrared photoconductivity in a single layer of Ge self-assembled quantum dots incorporated into silicon p-i-n diode is reported. An in-plane polarized photocurrent response with two bias controlled maxima at 2.9 μm and at 1.7 μm wavelength has been observed. The two kinds of absorption driven by reverse bias in opposite ways are ascribed to the intraband hole bound-to-continuum transition and to the interband excitonic transition.

Si (111) and Ge(111) surface formation energies were calculated using density functional theory for various biaxial strain states ranging from −0.04 to 0.04, and for a wide set of experimentally observed surface reconstructions: 3 × 3, 5 × 5, 7 × 7 dimer-adatom-stacking fault reconstructions and c(2 × 8), 2 × 2 and √ 3 × √ 3 adatoms based surfaces. The calculations are compared with scanning tunneling microscopy data obtained on stepped Si(111) surfaces and on Ge islands grown on a Si(111) substrate. It is shown that the surface structure transformations observed in these strained systems are accounted for by a phase diagram that relates the equilibrium surface structure to the applied strain. The calculated formation energy of the unstrained Si(111)-9 × 9 dimer-adatom-stacking fault surface is reported for the first time and it is higher than corresponding energies of Si(111)-5 × 5 and Si(111)-7 × 7 dimer-adatom-stacking fault surfaces as expected. We predict that the Si(111) surface should adopt a c(2 × 8) reconstruction when tensile strain is above 0.03.

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