Self-assembled rare-earth silicide nanowires on Si(001)

This paper presents scanning tunneling microscope images of several rare-earth metal silicides grown on silicon (001). For certain of the metals studied (Dy, Ho), an anisotropy in lattice match with the substrate results in the formation of nanowires. These nanowires have desirable properties such as nanometer lateral dimension, crystalline structure with a low density of defects, and micrometer scale length. Tunneling spectroscopy on the nanowires indicates that they are metallic.