Low-temperature homoepitaxial growth on Si(111) through a Pb monolayer

A monolayer of Pb mediates high-quality homoepitaxial growth on Si (111) surfaces at temperatures where growth with other overlayer elements or on bare surfaces leads to amorphous or highly defective crystalline films. Nearly defect-free epitaxy proceeds for film thicknesses up to 1000 A with no sign that this is an upper limit. The minimum temperature for high-quality epitaxy depends on the substrate miscut. For a 0.2° miscut, the minimum temperature is 340 °C. Films grown on substrates miscut 2.3° towards [112] show good crystalline quality down to 310 °C.