Effect of strain on the appearance of subcritical nuclei of Ge nanohuts on Si(001)

I. Goldfarb*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

23 Scopus citations

Abstract

Real-time scanning tunneling microscopy observations of nucleation and heteroepitaxial growth of Ge nanocrystals (from germane) on Si(001) indicate that in the absence of Si-Ge intermixing the formation of full hut cluster islands is preceded by the nucleation of "subcritical" nuclei consisting of two adjacent truncated tetrahedral pyramids, which, upon unification, form a tiny square-based pyramidal "critical nucleus." It is suggested that such a precursor aids in surpassing the nucleation barrier and that the recently reported gradual faceting of prepyramids is characteristic of only Ge(Si) alloys.

Original languageEnglish
Article number025501
JournalPhysical Review Letters
Volume95
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 8 Jul 2005

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