Growth of parallel rare-earth silicide nanowire arrays on vicinal Si(001)

It is possible to produce a parallel array of nanowires by growing thin layers of rare-earth (RE) silicides on a single-domain vicinal Si(001) surface. To achieve this result, the growth of compact silicide islands that generally coexist with the nanowires must be suppressed. Nanowire growth can be optimized by manipulating the growth kinetics, or by judicious choice of the RE metal. Gd appears to grow nanowires over a wider range of conditions than other metals. Some of the differences in behaviour between metals can be related to the biaxial strain in different silicide phases.