From Self-Organization of Monoatomic Steps on the Silicon Surface to Subnanometer Metrology

Abstract

The article presents how the understanding of the fundamental processes of self-organization and morphological transformations of the atomically clean Si(111) surface as a result of the study using in situ ultrahigh vacuum reflection electron microscopy can be applied to metrology. The method of high-resolution transmission electron microscopy is used to show that the native oxide formed on the Si(111) surface in atmospheric conditions replicates the atomic step height with high accuracy. The techniques for creating vertical measures in the range 0.31–31 nm with an error of less than 0.05 nm in the entire measurement range are developed on this basis. It is shown that it is possible to create extremely wide atomically smooth surfaces (up to 230 $$\mu$$ m) and use them as reference mirrors in interferometric microscopes. Crystal samples containing a certain number of monoatomic steps and atomically smooth surface areas are included in the State Secondary Reference Standard as a measure of angstrom height and angstrom flatness.