Atomic and electronic structure of the (2 root 3 x 2 root 3)R30 degrees strained Sn reconstruction on Ge/Si(111)

Waked Srour (1, 2) , Antonio Tejeda (3) , Mathieu Stoffel (1) , Manuel Abuín (4) , Yannick Fagot-Révurat (1) , Patrick Le Fèvre (2) , Amina Taleb-Ibrahimi (2) , Daniel Malterre (1)

1 IJL - Institut Jean Lamour
2 SSOLEIL - Synchrotron SOLEIL
3 LPS - Laboratoire de Physique des Solides
4 Departamento de Física de Materiales [Madrid]

Motivated by the different behaviour of Sn/Si(1 1 1) and Sn/Ge(1 1 1) in their metal-insulator transition, we have explored the possibility of growing Sn on an ultra-thin Ge layer strained on top of a Si(1 1 1) substrate. We have demonstrated by scanning tunneling microscopy and low energy electron diffraction that a (2 root 3 x 2 root 3)R30 degrees reconstruction can be stabilized under adequate growth conditions. The size of the reconstructed domains increases progressively up to a coverage of 1.3 monolayer of Sn, as determined by a combined study of scanning tunneling microscopy and core level spectroscopy. This coverage differs from that of Sn/Si(1 1 1) and Sn/Ge(1 1 1) exhibiting Mott phases. Angle resolved photoemission shows that the highly strained reconstruction is a band insulator, with a surface state dispersing roughly between 1300 and 2300 meV of binding energy

Mots clés: Growth; Strain; Surface reconstruction; Surface state; STM; Photoemission

Domaines: Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

Waked Srour, Antonio Tejeda, Mathieu Stoffel, Manuel Abuín, Yannick Fagot-Révurat, et al.. Atomic and electronic structure of the (2 root 3 x 2 root 3)R30 degrees strained Sn reconstruction on Ge/Si(111). Journal of Electron Spectroscopy and Related Phenomena, 2014, 195, pp.174-178. ⟨10.1016/j.elspec.2014.06.012⟩. ⟨hal-01273342⟩