Abstract
The perfectly ordered parallel arrays of periodic Ce silicide nanowires can self-organize with atomic precision on single-domain Si(110)-16 × 2 surfaces. The growth evolution of self-ordered parallel Ce silicide nanowire arrays is investigated over a broad range of Ce coverages on single-domain Si(110)-16 × 2 surfaces by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). Three different types of well-ordered parallel arrays, consisting of uniformly spaced and atomically identical Ce silicide nanowires, are self-organized through the heteroepitaxial growth of Ce silicides on a long-range grating-like 16 × 2 reconstruction at the deposition of various Ce coverages. Each atomically precise Ce silicide nanowire consists of a bundle of chains and rows with different atomic structures. The atomic-resolution dual-polarity STM images reveal that the interchain coupling leads to the formation of the registry-aligned chain bundles within individual Ce silicide nanowire. The nanowire width and the interchain coupling can be adjusted systematically by varying the Ce coverage on a Si(110) surface. This natural template-directed self-organization of perfectly regular parallel nanowire arrays allows for the precise control of the feature size and positions within ±0.2 nm over a large area. Thus, it is a promising route to produce parallel nanowire arrays in a straightforward, low-cost, high-throughput process.
Highlights
One-dimensional (1D) nanowires (NWs) have attracted significant attention in condensed matter physics and nanoelectronics because they exhibit peculiar properties due to many-body interactions in a 1D system [1,2]
Because the structural evolution of CeSix NWs for different coverages can be roughly divided into three various growth stages, we investigate in detail the coverage-dependent growth behaviors of the self-ordered CeSix NWs at these three different growth stages in the following
The scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) results show that the Si pentagon pairs serve as reactive nuclei for NW growth and account for the alignment of CeSix NWs on the periodic terraces of Si(110) surfaces
Summary
One-dimensional (1D) nanowires (NWs) have attracted significant attention in condensed matter physics and nanoelectronics because they exhibit peculiar properties due to many-body interactions in a 1D system [1,2]. Among a large variety of RES compounds, cerium silicide (CeSix) compounds (0.8 ≤ x ≤ 5.0) have attracted widespread interest owing to their several peculiar physical properties, such as intermediate valency, Kondo lattice, heavy fermion superconductivity, anisotropic transport, and magnetic ordering behavior, which originate from the interplay between the strong correlations of Ce 4f electrons and the hybridization of 4f electrons and conduction electrons [8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. CeSix NWs grown epitaxially on Si surfaces can become a promising 1D nanomaterial for Si-based spintronic applications In this regard, there is an ongoing interest in the self-organization of CeSix NWs on Si surfaces [19,20,21]
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