We report on the production of ordered assemblies of silicon nanostructures by means of irradiation of a Si(100) substrate with 1.2 keV Ar ions at normal incidence. Atomic Force and High-Resolution Transmission Electron microscopies show that the silicon structures are crystalline, display homogeneous height, and spontaneously arrange into short-range hexagonal ordering. Under prolonged irradiation (up to 16 hours) all dot characteristics remain largely unchanged and a small corrugation develops at long wavelengths. We interpret the formation of the dots as a result of an instability due to the sputtering yield dependence on the local surface curvature
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0106542,
title = {Production of ordered silicon nanocrystals by low-energy ion sputtering},
author = {Raul Gago and Luis Vazquez and Rodolfo Cuerno and Maria Varela and Carmen Ballesteros and Jose M. Albella},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0106542},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 two-column pages (revtex4), 3 figures (higher quality copies in the printed jrnl. version)