Dynamics of an Ising Chain under Local Excitation: A Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Study of Si(100) Dimer Rows at 5 K

Pennec, Yan; Hoegen, M. Horn von; Zhu, Xiaobin; Fortin, D. C.; Freeman, M. R.

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.96.026102

Cited by 31 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…They demonstrated that the tunneling current recorded above one of the atoms of a dimer of the Ge(001) surface exhibited telegraph like noise. A few years later similar experiments were reported for Si(001) by Hata et al [14], Yoshida et al [15], and Pennec et al [16]. The latter measurements demonstrated that the flip-flop motion of the dimers can be interpreted in terms of a so-called phason.…”

supporting

confidence: 51%

“…However, it has been well established since than that the lowest energy configuration is a buckled dimer [11,12]. The observed symmetric dimers are actually flip flopping rapidly between the two possible buckled configurations [13][14][15][16]. The first direct evidence for this flip-flop motion was provided by Sato, Iwatsuki, and Tochihara [13].…”

mentioning

confidence: 85%

“…1(c). To correct for the attractive interaction between tip and diffusing phasons, described by Pennec et al [16], the tunneling current is measured over each pixel of the STM picture. The width of one dimer is approximately 40 pixels in our STM images.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Dynamics and Energetics of Ge(001) Dimers

2006

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The dynamic behavior of surface dimers on Ge(001) has been studied by positioning the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope over single flip-flopping dimers and measuring the tunneling current as a function of time. We observe that not just symmetric, but also asymmetric appearing dimers exhibit flipflop motion. The dynamics of flip-flopping dimers can be used to sensitively gauge the local potential landscape of the surface. Through a spatial and time-resolved measurement of the flip-flop frequency of the dimers, local strain fields near surface defects can be accurately probed. The silicon and germanium semiconductor group IV (001) surfaces are among the most frequently studied surfaces in literature [1][2][3]. Because of its obvious technological importance to the semiconductor industry, the majority of studies have, however, been devoted to the Si(001) surface rather than the closely related Ge(001) surface. Both (001) surfaces are examples of a system that exhibits both a strong short-range interaction and a weak longrange interaction. The short-range interaction leads to dimerization, i.e., a pairing of nearest-neighbor surface atoms to form a (2 1) reconstruction [4]. The weaker long-range interaction results in various higher-order surface reconstructions, such as p 2 2 and c 4 2 . In several other aspects the Ge(001) surface [2] also turns out to be very similar to the Si(001) surface [3]. The properties and possible applications resulting from the dimerized termination of both surfaces has been the topic of many recent papers, investigating, e.g., the formation of heteroepitaxial nanostructures, the chemical reactivity of the bare (001) surfaces and the application of both surfaces in high-efficiency solar cells [5][6][7][8].

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confidence: 85%

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Dynamics and Energetics of Ge(001) Dimers

2006

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“…They are most likely structural defects or adsorbate-induced ones. Structural defects with a π phase shift in the dimerized chain structure were observed in various systems including the clean Si(001)2×1 [26] and Si(111)5×2-Au surfaces [27].…”

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confidence: 99%

Topological Solitons versus Nonsolitonic Phase Defects in a Quasi-One-Dimensional Charge-Density Wave

Kim

Yeom

2012

Phys. Rev. Lett.

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We investigated phase defects in a quasi-one-dimensional commensurate charge density wave (CDW) system, an In atomic wire array on Si(111), using low temperature scanning tunneling microscopy. The unique four-fold degeneracy of the CDW state leads to various phase defects, among which intrinsic solitons are clearly distinguished. The solitons exhibit a characteristic variation of the CDW amplitude with a coherence length of about 4 nm, as expected from the electronic structure, and a localized electronic state within the CDW gap. While most of the observed solitons are trapped by extrinsic defects, moving solitons are also identified and their novel interaction with extrinsic defects is disclosed.

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“…10a is a schematic of such measurement. An STM tip is held just above a target, for example, a Si dimer on a Si(011) surface which rapidly flip-flops between two conformations even at 80K [36,37]. Since the tunneling current depends on the distance between the STM tip and the target material, structural changes can be determined from the corresponding change in the tunneling current.…”

Section: Direct Observation Of Dynamics By Stmmentioning

confidence: 99%