abstract
Surface structures induced by submonolayer Sr adsorption on Si(111) surface were investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). Depending on the sample temperature and Sr coverage the following reconstructions on Si(111) surface could be directly resolved: 3 x 2, n x 1 (n = 5,7,9), 2 root 3 x root 13, 4 root 3 x 4 root 3, and root 3 x 2 with increasing Sr coverage. The 3 x 2 and 2 root 3 x root 13 striped structures cover large surface areas and are found to have stripe-to-stripe separations of 1.00 and 1.34 nm, respectively. The surface structures and respective rotational and antiphase domains reported here can explain all the previously suggested reconstructions except 2 x 1, which was not found. It is also demonstrated that diffraction data may lead to ambiguous results regarding the structure periodicity, when structural antiphase domains with sizes below the coherence length are present, highlighting the importance of complementary real space STM analysis. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics. [DOI: 10.1063/1.3005594]
keywords
OXIDES
subject category
Physics
authors
Teys, S; Olshanetsky, B; Zhachuk, R; Pereira, S; Norga, G
our authors
Sérgio Manuel de Sousa Pereira
Principal Researcheracknowledgements
This work was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (Grant No. 07-02-0214), by the Cariplo Foundation and Landau Network-Centro Volta and by FCT, Portugal.