Surface energetics and structure of the Ge wetting layer on Si(100)
- Creators
- Beck, M. J.
- van de Walle, A.
- Asta, M.
Abstract
Ge deposited on Si(100) initially forms heteroepitaxial layers, which grow to a critical thickness of ~3 MLs before the appearance of three-dimensional strain relieving structures. Experimental observations reveal that the surface structure of this Ge wetting layer is a dimer vacancy line (DVL) superstructure of the unstrained Ge(100) dimer reconstruction. In the following, the results of first-principles calculations of the thickness dependence of the wetting layer surface excess energy for the c(4×2) and 4×6 DVL surface reconstructions are reported. These results predict a wetting layer critical thickness of ~3 MLs, which is largely unaffected by the presence of dimer vacancy lines. The 4×6 DVL reconstruction is found to be thermodynamically stable with respect to the c(4×2) structure for wetting layers at least 2 ML thick. A strong correlation between the fraction of total surface induced deformation present in the substrate and the thickness dependence of wetting layer surface energy is also shown.
Additional Information
©2004 The American Physical Society. Received 27 January 2004; revised 2 July 2004; published 23 November 2004. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Program No. DMR-0102794, and made use of computing resources provided by NPACI at the University of Michigan. The authors also thank P. W. Voorhees for helpful discussions.Files
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 5122
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:BECprb04
- Created
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2006-10-02Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2023-01-19Created from EPrint's last_modified field