Citation

Kumar A, Tallarida M, Hansmann M, Starke U, Horn K. Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics 2004; 37(7): 1083-1090.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2004)

DOI

10.1088/0022-3727/37/7/021

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The electronic and structural properties of thin epitaxial Mn films on Si(111)-(7×7) and their suicide reaction are studied by means of low-energy electron diffraction, scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) and photoemission spectroscopy (PES). The deposition of Mn at room temperature initially results in the growth of islands. The metal-silicon reaction already occurs at this temperature, which is further enhanced by annealing up to 400°C, leading to the formation of manganese suicide and turning islands into nearly closed films at higher coverage. A pseudo-(1×1) phase develops for Mn films of up to 1 monolayer (ML) thickness. For films of higher thicknesses of up to 5 ML, a (√3×√3)R30° phase is observed. STM images show that then the suicide film is almost closed and exhibits a strain relief network reflecting an incommensurate interface structure. PES reveals that the (1×1) phase is semiconducting while the (√3×√3)R30° phase is metallic. For both phases, Si 2p core level photoemission data indicate that the surface is probably terminated by Si atoms.

Language: en

Keywords

Silicon compounds; Thin films; Semiconducting silicon; Low energy electron diffraction; Reaction kinetics; Strain; Stacking faults; Photoemission; Electronic structure; Spectroscopic analysis; Photoemission spectroscopy (PES); Photon energy; Surface atoms; Valence level spectra