Related papers: Initial stage of the 2D-3D transition of a straine…
The results of STM and RHEED studies of a thin Ge film grown on the Si/Si(001) epitaxial layers with different surface relief are presented. Process of the partial stress relaxation was accompanied by changes in the surface structure of the…
The morphology of the first three-dimensional islands appearing during strained growth of SiGe alloys on Si(001) was investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy. High resolution images of individual islands and a statistical analysis of…
We report on calculations of the formation energies of several [100] and [110] oriented step structures on biaxially stressed Si and Ge (001) surfaces. It is shown that a novel rebonded [100] oriented single-height step is strongly…
Self-assembled Ge islands were grown on stripe-patterned Si (001) substrates by solid source molecular beam epitaxy. The surface morphology obtained by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy…
An extended formation of faceted pit-like defects on Ge(001) and Ge(111) wafers was obtained by thermal cycles to T> 750 {\deg}C. This temperature range is relevant in many surface-preparation recipes of the Ge surface. The density of the…
Pressure-induced phase transformations (PTs) between numerous phases of Si, the most important electronic material, have been studied for decades. This is not the case for plastic strain-induced PTs. Here, we revealed in-situ various…
The article presents an experimental study of an issue of whether the formation of arrays of Ge quantum dots on the Si(001) surface is an equilibrium process or it is kinetically controlled. We deposited Ge on Si(001) at the room…
The uniaxial structure of Si and Ge (001) facets leads to nontrivial topological properties of steps and hence to interesting equilibrium phase transitions. The disordered flat phase and the preroughening transition can be stabilized…
Ge/Si(001) multilayer heterostructures containing arrays of low-temperature self-assembled Ge quantum dots and very thin Si$_x$Ge$_{1-x}$ layers of varying composition and complex geometry have been studied using Raman spectroscopy and…
Cracks develop various surface patterns as they propagate in three-dimensional (3D) materials. Facet formation in nominally tensile (mode-I) fracture emerge in the slow, non-inertial regime and oftentimes takes the form of surface steps. We…
The annealing of sub-critical Ge wetting layers (WL<3.5 ML) initiates the formation of 3D nanostructures, whose shape and orientation is determined by the WL thickness and thus directly related to the strain energy. The emergence of these…
We investigate the morphologies of the Ge(001) surface that are produced by bombardment with a normally incident, broad argon ion beam at sample temperatures above the recrystallization temperature. Two previously-observed kinds of…
Si(111) and Ge(111) surface formation energies were calculated using density functional theory for various biaxial strain states ranging from -0.04 to 0.04, and for a wide set of experimentally observed surface reconstructions: 3x3, 5x5,…
Ion sputtering induced nanoscale pattern formation on Ge (001) surface by 500 eV Ar+ bombardment has been investigated for a wide range of ion incidence angles at temperature of 300 deg.C. A fourfold symmetric topography forms in the…
Si/Ge heteroepitaxial dots under tensile strain are grown on nanostructured Ge substrates produced by high-temperature flash heating exploiting the spontaneous faceting of the Ge(001) surface close to the onset of surface melting. A very…
We report a direct STM observation of Ge hut array nucleation on the Si(001) surface during ultrahigh vacuum molecular-beam epitaxy at 360C. Nuclei of pyramids and wedges have been observed on the wetting layer MxN patches starting from the…
Using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), we investigate oxide-induced growth pits in Si thin films deposited by molecular beam epitaxy. In the transition temperature range from 2D adatom islanding to step-flow growth, systematic…
We have carried out scanning tunneling microscopy experiments under ultrahigh vacuum condition to study the morphology of ultrathin Ge films eposited on pristine Si(100) and ion-irradiated Si(100) self-affine fractal surfaces. The pristine…
An investigation of the early stage formation of graphene on the C-face of 6H-SiC is presented. We show that the sublimation of few atomic layers of Si out of the SiC substrate is not homogeneous. In good agreement with the results of…
We study pressure-induced structural evolution of vanadium diselenide (VSe2), a 1T polymorphic member of the transition metal di-chalcogenide (TMD) family using synchrotron-based powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) and first-principles density…