Evidence of electronic growth in titanium- and cobalt-silicide islands

A possibility of growing highly mismatched and yet two-dimensional heteroepitaxial deposits, is both fascinating in terms of basic science and technologically important. So far, stabilization of flat morphology by a reduction of the overall electron energy in a quantum well (hence termed "electronic growth"), has been observed exclusively in heteroepitaxy of simple metals, lead, and silver. This work shows, that a broader class of functional materials can be grown "electronically," such as titanium- and cobalt-silicide nano-islands on Si(111), despite their more complex electronic structure.