Adsorbate induced roughening in Si(100)

C.M. ALDAO Y D.A. MIRABELLA,

Boston

Congreso; 240th American Chemical Society National Meeting; 2010

Adsorbate induced restructuring and roughening have been observed in many crystal surfaces. However, in surface science and catalysis, substrates are regularly considered stable, as a static place where adsorption and reactions take place. Si(100), one of the most studied surfaces because of its relevance in semiconductor device fabrication, is an ideal candidate to test the effects of adsorbate-substrate interactions. It has been observed that halogens roughen Si(100) without material removal at relatively low temperature. Adsorbate-adsorbate steric repulsion was considered to be the interaction responsible for the spontaneous roughening of Si(100). More recently, dimer anticorrelation energy and selective adsorption sites have been proposed as candidate interactions responsible for roughening. We undertook a systematic Monte Carlo modeling to determine the effects of the proposed interactions and to compare with the experimentally observed surface morphologies.