Spontaneous roughening: fundamental limits in Si(100) halogen etch processing.
A dynamical scanning tunneling microscopy and density functional theory study of the thermodynamic stability of halogen-terminated Si(100) surfaces is presented. Significant steric repulsion is shown to exist on all halogen-terminated Si(100) surfaces. This repulsion is the driving force for a roughening phenomenon, which is favored for all halogens except fluorine. Since roughening is an intrinsic property of these surfaces, it sets a lower bound on the atomic scale perfection that can be achieved using halogen etch processing.
Herrmann
Cari F
CF
Venable and Kenan Laboratories, Department of Chemistry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-3290, USA.
Chen
Dongxue
D
Boland
John J
JJ