Initial stages of silicon homoepitaxy studied by in situ reflection electron microscopy

The conditions are determined of both, step-layer growth and formation of two-dimensional growth islands during homoepitaxy on the atomic clean (111) silicon surface by in situ reflection electron microscopy in ultrahigh vacuum. The intensity oscillations of reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) are shown to be caused by periodic changes of the surface micromorphology due to the two-dimensional islands growth. The analysis of individual monoatomic steps motion during homoepitaxy shows that the coefficient of the adatoms incorporation into the monoatomic step from the upper terrace is less than that from the lower terrace.