The growth behavior and morphology evolution of erbium silicide nanostructures are studied on the vicinal Si(001) surface with a 4° miscut angle towards the [110] direction as the functions of annealing temperature, annealing time, and Er coverage. Three kinds of nanostructures can be observed on the surface: nanowires, rectangular nanoislands and square nanoislands. The experimental results reveal that nanowires in AlB2-type structure and the nanoislands in ThSi2-type structure can be formed at 600–650 and 700–750°C, respectively. At the final growth stage, the nanowires of erbium silicide undergo Ostwald ripening. At high coverage of two monolayers, many AlB2-type nanoislands will appear in a rectangular shape on the sample surface. According to the AlB2-type crystalline structure of ErSi2 and the scanning tunneling microscopy results obtained on the flat and vicinal substrate surfaces, a model is suggested to describe the ErSi2∕Si(001) interfacial structure. This model explains the spatial orientation relationship between erbium silicide nanowire and Si dimer row, and is consistent with Er-induced (2×3) reconstruction at the initial stage of Er growth on the Si(001) surface.
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Zhu et al. (2006) studied this question.
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