A comparative study of Sb bonding on group IV semiconductor substrates


To appear in Phys. Rev. B (1997)

S.J.Jenkins and G.P.Srivastava


Semiconductor Physics Group, Department of Physics, University of Exeter, Stocker Road, Exeter EX4 4QL, United Kingdom


We present the results of ab initio pseudopotential density functional calculations for the geometry and bonding of the Si(001)/Sb(2x1) and Ge(001)/Sb(2x1) surfaces. The Sb dimers are found to be symmetric, with bond lengths of 2.96 A and 2.92 A on the Si and Ge substrates respectively. We thus concur with recent theoretical work which concluded that the asymmetric Sb dimer model for the Ge substrate, favoured by surface x-ray diffraction (SXD) studies, is incorrect. Furthermore, we calculate that the monolayer-averaged chemisorption energy of Sb on the Si substrate is 0.48 eV per dimer greater in magnitude than on the Ge substrate, and discuss the implications for surfactant mediated growth.


Stephen Jenkins
Last modified: Wed Jul 30 12:36:50 BST 1997