Low-Temperature Structure of Indium Quantum Chains on Silicon

The array of quasi-one-dimensional indium chains in the Si(111)- (4x1)-In surface reconstruction exhibits a phase transition to a low-temperature (8x2) phase. It has been suggested that this phase transition is related to a charge density wave (CDW) formation. The x-ray diffraction results presented here demonstrate that at 20 K the CDW has not yet condensed into a superstructure even though good transverse coupling was established. This indicates that CDW formation cannot be the driving force for the phase transition. Furthermore we elucidate the subtle highly anisotropic interchain correlations and reveal the detailed atomic structure of the low-temperature (8x2) phase.