Scanning tunneling microscopy has been used to study the reconstructions of Si-terminated SiC(0001) surfaces observed after heat treatment at increasing temperatures. For the √3×√3 reconstruction, obtained by heating at temperatures around 950 °C, the images can be explained by a model composed of 1/3 monolayer of Si or C adatoms in threefold symmetric sites on top of the outermost Si–C bilayer. For surfaces heated above 1050 °C the images show growing fractions of quasiperiodic 6×6 and 5×5 reconstructions. Heating above 1250 °C results in a partial graphitization of the surface which modifies the observed 6×6 structure.
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Owman et al. (1996) studied this question.