Atomic structure and thermal stability of two-dimensional Er silicide on Si(111)

Atomic structure of thin dysprosium-silicide layers on Si(111)

“…Silicides of the trivalent rare earth metals grown as thin films on silicon surfaces are currently of high interest because of their low Schottky-barrier heights on n-type substrates [1][2][3][4][5], their epitaxial growth on Si(1 1 1) [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] and the self-organized formation of nanowires on Si(0 0 1) [19][20][21][22][23]. These silicide films can be prepared by rare-earth deposition and subsequent annealing.…”

“…R30 superstructure [8,17,18]. These vacancies in the second silicon layer have a strong influence on the tunneling probability, resulting in the observation of bright triangles with triple protrusions and dark holes in between.…”

One-dimensional chain structures produced by Ce on Si(111)

“…Many surface reconstructions on Si(1 1 1) surfaces have been reported for various rare-earth metals (e.g., Ce [6][7][8], Sm [9], Er [10,11], Eu [12], and Gd [13]), as functions of annealing temperature and duration using various techniques.…”

Medium-energy ion scattering studies of two-dimensional rare-earth silicides

“…In the specific case of rare-earth ͑RE͒ metals on silicon, technological interest arises from the fact that RE silicides on silicon have been found to have unusual Schottky barrier heights of 0.3-0.4 eV for n-Si and 0.7-0.8 eV for p-Si. 1,2 Furthermore, from a fundamental point of view, the Er/Si͑111͒ surface is of interest due its unusual feature of forming a two-dimensional ͑2D͒ silicide layer on top of Si͑111͒ for an Er coverage of 1 monolayer ͑ML͒, [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] characterized by a 1ϫ1 low-energy electron diffraction ͑LEED͒ pattern. Such 2D silicides have also been suggested for the Ho/Si͑111͒ and Dy/Si͑111͒ surfaces 12 and appear to be unique to trivalent rare-earth metals.…”

“…13 However, the 2D silicide phase of Er on Si͑111͒ has been studied quantitatively with surface X-ray diffraction ͑SXRD͒, using medium-energy ion scattering as a verification. 7 A structural solution was proposed consisting of a monolayer of Er atoms situated on T4 sites above an essentially bulk-terminated Si͑111͒ surface with an extra Si bilayer rotated by 180°with respect to the substrate ͑Fig. 1͒.…”