Self-assembly of silicide quantum dot arrays on stepped silicon surfaces by reactive epitaxy Available to Purchase

Reactive epitaxy of Co on vicinal Si(111) surfaces is found to be a flexible and a convenient method for the preparation of dense arrays of Co silicide quantum dots. In the present work, submonolayer amounts of Co were deposited at $800K$ on vicinal and flat Si surfaces, analyzing the resulting structures by scanning tunneling microscopy. On vicinal Si(111) surfaces with relatively narrow $(∼40–100Å)$ terrace width, such reactive epitaxy leads to self-assembled arrays of $CoSi2$ quantum dots with a sharp size distribution function. In contrast, the growth of Co on flat Si(111) results in an inhomogeneous array of dots mixed with a variety of silicide phases.