AVS 51st International Symposium
    Surface Science Thursday Sessions
       Session SS3-ThA

Paper SS3-ThA6
LEEM Observation of Island Decay on Si(110)

Thursday, November 18, 2004, 3:40 pm, Room 213B

Session: Surface Diffusion and Transport
Presenter: F. Watanabe, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Authors: F. Watanabe, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
S. Kodambaka, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
W. Swiech, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
G.D. Cahill, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Correspondent: Click to Email
Laser texturing enables the observation of island decays on (1x1) high temperature phase of Si(110) surface in low energy electron microscopy by artificially creating large flat terraces. At temperatures above the phase transition (T = 790 ~ 980 °C), the decay of the island areas exhibits a nonlinear dependence on time, indicating the rate limiting process is surface diffusion. The aspect ratios of the islands during the decay show a weak temperature dependence. Following a methodology developed previously@footnote 1@, we have obtained kinetic parameters involved in the island decay. The activation energy of mass transport and the free energy of kink formation have been determined to be 1.67 ± 0.15 eV and 0.22 ± 0.03 eV respectively. Based on this value for the kink energy and the equilibrium island shapes, we derive the angular dependence of the step energy and the step stiffness. @FootnoteText@ @footnote 1@ S. Kodambaka, V. Petrova, S. V. Khare, D. D. Johnson, I. Petrov, and J. E. Greene, Surf. Sci. 513, 468 (2002).