AVS 45th International Symposium
    Surface Science Division Tuesday Sessions
       Session SS1-TuM

Paper SS1-TuM6
Scanning Tunneling Microscopy of B/Si(001)

Tuesday, November 3, 1998, 10:00 am, Room 308

Session: Semiconductor Surface Structure
Presenter: J.F. Nielsen, Ohio State University
Authors: J.F. Nielsen, Ohio State University
H.-J. Im, Ohio State University
J.P. Pelz, Ohio State University
M. Krueger, University of Minnesota
B. Borovsky, University of Minnesota
E. Ganz, University of Minnesota
Correspondent: Click to Email
Previous work has shown that annealing of heavily B-doped Si(001)-(2x1) surfaces produces spontaneous formations of S@sub A@ steps into periodic "striped" patterns,@footnote 1@ consistent with stress relaxation effects considered by Marchenko@footnote 2@ and Alerhand et al.@footnote 3@ However, the exact role of boron in the step formation, as well as the cause for the observed increase in step density with decreasing annealing temperature, are still under investigation. Using detailed bias-dependent STM measurements of various B-induced surface structures, we have (1) determined that the density of B-induced surface structures does NOT change significantly with annealing temperature, leaving unresolved the strong temperature dependence of the step formation, (2) observed direct evidence of boron accumulation at step edges, providing a possible mechanism for boron-induced lowering of S@sub A@-step creation energy, and (3) identified characteristic structural and electronic features of a number of distinct B-induced structures, which indicate a need to reclassify previously reported B-related structures.@footnote 4@ We are currently introducing surface B in a controlled way by decomposing B@sub 2@H@sub 6@ on lightly P-doped Si(001). Initial observations indicate that deposition parameters determine whether B induces the formation of reconstructed islands@footnote 5@ or whether B forms isolated structures equivalent to those observed on bulk-doped samples. Employed as a semiconductor processing step, this process could allow for the controlled production of periodic arrays of nanoscale step structures. @FootnoteText@ @footnote 1@D.E. Jones et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 330 (1996) @footnote 2@O.L. Alerhand et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. 61, 1973 (1988) @footnote 3@V.I. Marchenko, JETP Lett. 33, 381 (1981) @footnote 4@Z. Zhang et al, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. 14, 2684 (1996) @footnote 5@Y. Wang et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 403 (1995)