Surface reconstruction suggests a nucleation mechanism in bulk: Sb/Si(113) and {113} planar defects

Sb-induced reconstructions on Si(113): Adatoms as the key elements

“…Therefore, they are likely to be broken with increasing coverage and the formation of interstitial Sb or Si dimers may result from this process. 6,24 At a coverage of 0.34 ML, most likely Si-Si dimers may be found, which will be confirmed by the investigations in Sec. IV B.…”

“…Thus, we performed DFT calculations for mixed Sb-Si dimers, 6 Sb-Sb dimers, 6 Sb adatom tetramer, 5 and Sb tetramer 5 reconstructions in addition to the previously discussed Sb adatom and Si-Si dimer reconstructions.…”

“…Up to now, Sb covered Si͑113͒ surfaces were investigated with scanning tunneling microscopy in combination with density functional theory ͑DFT͒ calculations 5,6 and with x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy ͑XPS͒ and lowenergy electron diffraction ͑LEED͒. 7 For coverages below 1 ML, it was proposed that adatom sites are found in antiphase domain boundaries of ͑1 ϫ 1͒ periodicity between ͑2 ϫ 2͒ domains.…”

“…7 For coverages below 1 ML, it was proposed that adatom sites are found in antiphase domain boundaries of ͑1 ϫ 1͒ periodicity between ͑2 ϫ 2͒ domains. 6 For coverages between 1 ML and 1.5 ML, Wolff et al 5 suggested that ͑2 ϫ 2͒ Sb adatom-tetramer reconstructions are formed. Later, authors from the same group ͑Dąbrowski et al 6 ͒ drew conclusions on interstitial dimer structures and argued that the dimers contain Sb or Si atoms depending on the Sb coverage.…”

Ge islanding growth on nitridized Si and the effect of Sb surfactant

“…Zahl et al have reported an Sb-induced (2 × 1) LEED pattern on flat Ge(111) surfaces [16]. Also, Sb-induced (2 × 2) reconstruction has been found by Dabrowski et al [17] on Si(113) surfaces. The atomic features of the reconstruction that we obtained on Ge are very similar to what they obtained on Si.…”