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.
Venable and Kenan Laboratories, Department of Chemistry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-3290, USA.
Cari F
CF
Herrmann
Dongxue
D
Chen
John J
JJ
Boland