Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2011
Low-energy (50 eV) homoepitaxial beam deposition of silicon is simulated using many-body silicon potentials and molecular dynamics techniques. Results are presented for the case of a 50 eV neutral silicon beam incident on the (2×1) dimer reconstructed Si(100) surface. The beam is aligned along (110) symmetry directions, which are the most natural channeling directions in the silicon lattice. Roughly 10% of the incident beam atoms are scattered from the surface with a small fraction of their initial energy. About half of the incident atoms penetrate the lattice, but scatter strongly and come to rest within 10–15Å of the surface. The remainder are steered accurately into the bulk (110) channels, where they penetrate some 30–100 Å into the lattice. Those atoms which do not undergo bulk channeling cause considerable lattice damage to the near-surface (depth ≥10Å) region.