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An ex situ cleaning and etching technique was applied to NaCl single crystals to prepare atomically flat and clean NaCl surfaces. These were used as substrates for molecular beam epitaxial growth of ultrathin continuous Bi(111) films. The high film quality—as studied with low energy electron diffraction, atomic force microscopy, and transmission electron diffraction—is attributed to the commensurate 10:7 ratio of the lattice constants. Dissolving the NaCl substrates in water allows the fabrication of freestanding 20 nm thin Bi(111) membranes of centimeter size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surfactant mediated epitaxy of Si(1-x)Gex alloys on Si(111) can, besides technological importance, clarify the influence of the lattice mismatch during surfactant mediated heteroepitaxial growth. For low Ge concentration we find an immediate layer-by-layer growth, whereas at high Ge concentration a roughening transition followed by relaxation of the lattice mismatch in a periodic dislocation network is preferred. This behavior can be explained by comparing the dislocation nucleation rate on a smooth surface with the island nucleation rate on a pseudomorphic film. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates the crystalline quality of surfactant mediated grown homoepitaxial silicon (Si) films on Si. Dependence of site exchange between Si and adsorbate on binding energy; Effects of bound adsorbate on growth inhibition; Formation of bulk defects in the film during Si growth.

Bending sample methods, like surface stress induced optical deflection, are powerful tools for the in situ determination of thin film and surface stress: the bending radius of a sample is measured via the deflection of reflected laser beams. In most setups split-segment position sensitive detectors are used. A precise method for calibrating those detectors is presented. © 2004 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epitaxial Bi2Se3 films were grown by molecular beam epitaxy on Si(111)-Bi(3 x 3)R30° at temperatures between 200 and 250°C. The surface and bulk morphology was characterized by high resolution low energy electron diffraction, X-ray diffraction, and atomic force microscopy for various film thicknesses between 6 and 90nm. The films are atomically smooth without small angle mosaics or small angle rotational domains. The precise determination of lattice parameter reveals that films grown at higher temperature exhibit a smaller value for the vertical lattice parameter. The presence of random stacking faults in the film is reflected by a parabolic increase of the width of the diffraction peaks in X-ray diffraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The self-assembly of submonolayer amounts of Au on the densely stepped Si(553) surface creates an array of closely spaced "atomic wires" separated by 1.5 nm. At low temperature, charge transfer between the terraces and the row of silicon dangling bonds at the step edges leads to a charge-ordered state within the row of dangling bonds with ×3 periodicity. Interactions between the dangling bonds lead to their ordering into a fully two-dimensional (2D) array with centered registry between adjacent steps. We show that as the temperature is raised, soliton defects are created within each step edge. The concentration of solitons rises with increasing temperature and eventually destroys the 2D order by decoupling the step edges, reducing the effective dimensionality of the system to 1D. This crossover from higher to lower dimensionality is unexpected and, indeed, opposite to the behavior in other systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adsorption of Au on Si(553) results in the self-assembly of highly ordered step arrays of one-dimensional (1D) Au atomic wires along the step direction. Charge transfer from the terrace to the step edge causes every third Si atom at the step edge to exhibit a partially filled dangling bond hosting a single fully spin-polarized electron which forms in an ordered 1D spin chain along the step. The interstep correlation of this threefold periodicity in neighboring Si step edges and the geometry of the unit cell has been determined by means of high-resolution spot profile analysis low-energy electron diffraction, scanning tunneling microscopy, and density functional theory. While the twofold periodicity of the Au wires exhibits a weak interwire interaction, leading to streaks in the diffraction pattern, the correlation of the Si step edge atoms is by far a stronger interaction, resulting in clear spots. The corresponding unit cell spanned by threefold ordered step edge atoms can be described as a centered structure which is magnetically frustrated and may stabilize a (two-dimensional) quantum spin liquid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]