Abstract
We show that a (3 × 3) buckling distortion with one raised and two lowered surface atoms per unit cell lowers by as much as 0.18 eV/(surface atom) the energy of the clean, unreconstructed Si(111) surface. On the defect-free surface this state is not a true energy minimum, and is unstable against conversion into the lower energy (2×1) -bonded chain reconstruction. A low concentration of added surface vacancies, however, is found to yield a buckled (3 × 3) state which is a stable local minimum. Predictions are made for possible scanning-tunneling-microscopy observation of this displacive reconstruction.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 14726-14729 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Journal | Physical Review B |
Volume | 43 |
Issue number | 18 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1991 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Condensed Matter Physics