A scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) has revealed an atomic structure of Si(111)-√3× √3R30° which is induced by the hydrogen desorption at about 500 °C. There exist domains with the √3× √3R30° structures, indicating that each domain is formed by rearrangement of Si adatoms around each cluster present at room temperature. Near the domain boundary, the adatoms locate mostly at T4 sites and occasionally at H3 sites. The dynamic nature of the adatoms are predicted.

Three types of steps are observed on the cleaved InP(110) surface, using atomicresolution ultra-high vacuum (UHV) scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). The step edges are oriented along the (110), (111), and (112) directions. Atomic models of monatomic-height (111) and (112) steps indicate that the edges of each of these unrelaxed steps should have pairs of dangling bonds. We propose that the bonds dimerize, causing the edges to relax and form periodic structures along the edge.

Different layered transition metal dichalcogenides were subjected to scanning tunneling microscopy to reveal the electronic charge distribution associated with the charge density wave (CDW) part of the superstructure, in addition to the atomic corrugation. The observations presented display three regimes ranging from localized CDW centred around defects/impurities in the case of lT-TiS2, via an intermediate regime governed by overlapping envelope functions in 2H-NbSe2, to a fully developed CDW system in 1T-TaSe2 (as well in a large number of other compounds). The fact that these observations have been made in solids ranging from (dirty) semiconductor (1T-TiS2) to semimetal (1T-TaSe2) to metallic (2H-NbSe2) points at the general applicability of the phenomenological Ginzburg-Landau theory, employed to describe the various regimes in which the formation of charge density waves and the accompanying periodic lattice distortions appear to act.

An ultra high vacuum (UHV) scanning electron microscope (SEM) combined with a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) has been designed and constructed to solve problems, arising from STM surface imaging and nanofabrication using STM tips, such as difficulty in probe tip location and change in tip shape. The system facilitates to image and/or to modify a wide range of area from submicron down to subnanometer. A ZrO/W thermal emitter in a Schottky mode has been used for an electron gun to obtain a low energy spread with a high angular current density. Minimum beam spot diameters of 6 and 12 nm with currents of 100 pA and 4 nA are estimated by optical property calculation for high resolution (SEM) and high current (fabrication) modes, respectively.

Scanning tunneling microscopy has been used in ultra high vacuum to provide atomic scale structural information on reduced SrTiO3(001) surfaces. Our tunneling images exhibit row-like features with 12 Å and 20 Å periodicities on the reduced surface. A local 2×1 reconstruction was also revealed on some regions of the surface. The experimental results are discussed in terms of the different sublimation rates of surface constituents and formation of lamella structures of Srn+lTinO3n+l.

We have obtained STM images and STS data with atomic-scale resolution for SrTIO3 (100) surface annealed in UHV at 1200 °C. A √5×√5-R26.6° surface superstructure indicating oxygen vacancy ordering has been observed. The STS data provide evidence for a localized surface state arising from oxygen vacancies at 1.35 eV below the Fermi level. STM images of the √5×√5 structure correspond to the surface orbital of the ordered Ti-oxygen vacancy.

Knowledge about atomic scale motions is essential to the understanding of dynamical phenomena on surfaces, such as diffusion, phase transitions, and epitaxial growth. We demonstrate that the addition of a very small number of Pb atoms to a Ge(111) surface reduces the energy barrier for activated processes, thus allowing one to observe concerted atomic motions and metastable structures on this surface near room temperature using a tunneling microscope. The activation energy for surface diffusion of isolated substitutional Pb atoms in Ge(111)-c(2×8) was measured by observing individual atomic interchanges from 24°C to 79°C. We also observed the formaticn and annihilation of metastable structural surface excitations, which are associated with large numbers of germanium surface atoms in one row of the c(2×8) reconstruction shifting along that row like beads on an abacus. The effect provides a new mechanism for atomic transport on semiconductor surfaces and can explain a number of other observed phenomena associated with Ge(111) surfaces, including the surface diffusion of Pb atoms.

Atom-probe field ion microscopy is capable of imaging solid surfaces with atomic resolution, and at the same time chemically analyzing atoms selected by the observer from the atomic image. The samples are restricted to those having a tip shape, but in many cases this is no longer a drawback since structures in high-tech materials are reducing in size to that comparable to or smaller than the field ion emitter tip. This technique is finding many applications in different areas. Our recent applications of this technique to the study of the dynamical behavior of surfaces and surface atoms and their mechanisms and energetics, and the atomic scale chemical and composition analysis will be briefly described.

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) is used to study the structure of Al-√3×√3 domains on the Si(111)-7×7 surface and the atomic arrangement near the domain boundary. Al-√3×√3 domains grow from the lower side of the <112> step and extend over the Si-7×7 terrace. The phase transition is observed to occur in units of the 7×7 size. Detailed investigation at around the boundary reveals that faulted halves of the 7×7 unit are adjacent to the boundary on the Si-7×7 side, while on the Al-√3×√3 side, Al adatoms occupy the T4 sites except for the rows adjacent to the phase boundaries where Al atoms occupy the Si adatom sites. The latter Al atoms play an important role to retain the dimer structure at the boundary.

The growth and surface morphology of thin LPCVD silicon films were investigated with an atomic force microscope (AFM). Silicon films of 30 nm thicknesses were deposited on SiO2 using SiH4 at four different temperatures between 550 °C and 625 °C. These AFM results permitted visualization of silicon surface granularity, roughness, and the transition with temperature from amorphous to crystalline structure between 550 °C and 580 °C. The surface of the amorphous film deposited at 550 °C is very smooth and the film is continuous physically, while the film formed at 580 °C appears crystalline, rough and porous. At 600 °C and 625 °C the films are fully crystalline. For these higher temperature films surface roughness and the average grain size decreased significantly compared to 580 °C film. Crystallinity and film continuity were further examined by x-ray diffraction (XRD) and cross-sectional TEM measurements.

By a combination of high resolution imaging (HREM) and grazing incidence X-ray scattering (GIXS), periodic interfaces with large unit cell can be solved at an atomic scale. The advantage of recording information in the real space is that phases are directly encoded in the image. On the other hand the X-ray diffraction gives quantitative information at a resolution level better than with HREM. This combined analysis is illustrated on GaAs (001)-CdTe (111) and on GaAs(001)-GaSb(001) interfaces. In both cases the structure at the interface is obtained and some mechanisms for the strain relaxation at heterostructures with large misfit are proposed.

We have used a non-linear least squares optimization method to deduce a model for the atomic structure of the Σ(310)/[001] symmetric tilt grain boundary in Nb from high resolution electron micrographs (HREM) of a bicrystal prepared by diffusion bonding. The resultant model is similar to, but differs in detail from a theoretical prediction based on interatomic potentials which included angular forces thought to be important in the prediction of defect structures in body centered cubic metals. Results validate this approach as a step towards making HREM a quantitative technique.

We present here a study of the Σ=3 {112} incoherent twin boundary in aluminum. Atomistic studies of this boundary indicate that several high energy boundary structures may exist, with the lowest energy structure exhibiting a small rigid body shift parallel to the boundary. The observations presented here indicate that the rigid body shift does in fact occur and that its magnitude, as well as the local grain boundary structure, is well predicted by atomistic calculations using the Embedded Atom Method. The low energy boundary configuration is much narrower than the equivalent boundaries that have been observed in the lower stacking fault energy FCC metals.

High - resolution transmission electron microscopy (HREM) has been used to characterize the atomic structure of the symmetric 36.9° tilt grain boundary with [001] tilt axes forming a twin about (310) in Nb. The projected structure was imaged along two different directions in the plane of the boundary and was compared to model structures through high - resolution image simulation. The atomic structure of this Σ5 boundary was predicted with atomistic simulations using interatomic potentials derived from the Embedded Atom Method (EAM), Finnis-Sinclair (FS), and the Model Generalized Pseudopotential Theory (MGPT). The EAM and FS predicted structures with translations of the adjacent crystals which break mirror symmetry. The MGPT predicted one stable structure with mirror symmetry. The atomic structure of the (310) twin in Nb was found by HREM to be mirror symmetric. These findings indicate that the angular dependent interactions modeled in the MGPT are important for determining the grain boundary structures of bcc transition metals.

Detailed structural characterization of a near Σ11 grain boundary in ultra-pure α-A12O3 bi-crystals was performed by means of high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). High-resolution imaging revealed a characteristic periodic pattern along the grain boundary. In addition to HRTEM studies, atomistic simulations based on an ionic model were used to calculate three-dimensional structure models that were compared with the experimentally obtained images of the grain boundary. The comparison between the simulated and experimental HRTEM images showed good agreement for the theoretically proposed grain-boundary structure with the lowest grain-boundary energy of 1.8 Jm−2.

High-resolution electron microscopy (HREM) and image simulations using the multislice algorithm have been used to study the atomic structure of a Pd/NiO (111) interface in an intemally oxidized sample. Samples prepared in this way result in cube-on-cube oriented or twin-related precipitates whose (111) interfaces exhibit a contrast modulation along the boundary plane in HREM images. Previous studies have reported that the observed structural period of this modulation corresponds qualitatively to the expected spacing if the boundary was composed of a network of misfit dislocations. In this study, rigid models of the (111) interface as viewed from the [110] direction were simulated using the EMS suite of programs. The questions we address are: (1) whether the terminating plane on the oxide side is made up of a Ni or an 0 layer, and (2) whether a rigid body translation normal to the interface exists. Finally, the results of the simulations are compared and contrasted to through-focal experimental images to investigate the origin of the contrast modulations and their possible relation to the extent of the misfit localization in these systems.

The atomic structure of a pristine (undoped) boundary in strontium titanate has been investigated using transmission electron microscopy techniques. Results of electron diffraction studies indicate a pure tilt boundary with a common \001] tilt axis, and a tilt angle of 36.8°, which corresponds to a Σ-= 5 grain boundary in the Coincidence Site Lattice (CSL) notation. High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM) indicates a symmetric tilt grain boundary with a (130) type grain boundary plane. No cation non-stoichiometry or impurity segregants could be detected at the interface, within the limits of the Energy Dispersive X-ray microanalysis technique used. The grain boundary has a compact core, with negligible planenormal rigid body translation (RBT). An in-plane RBT of (1/2)d130 (˜ 0.62 A°) was identified from the high resolution electron micrographs. An empirical model of the relaxed atomic structure of the grain boundary is proposed.

We report on an investigation into the interfacial structure of undoped GaInAs/GaInAsP multiple quantum wells grown by metalorganic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD), which exhibit a pronounced blue shift in luminescence output upon in-situ thermal annealing at 750°C. Using a recently developed composition mapping technique based on the scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) in conjunction with energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis, the constituent element concentration profiles across the interdiffused multilayer interfaces are measured with a spatial resolution of less than 2nm and a precision of better than 2–3%. The accuracy of the analysis is significantly improved by employing stoichiometric normalisation factors which compensate for systematic errors due to electron channelling. The results showed that the interdiffusion follows a highly non-linear path due to the relatively fast diffusion of the group V species compared to that of the group III species. This implies an increase in the coherency strain in the multilayer, a result which is supported by five-crystal Xray diffraction analysis of the layers. The samples have also been examined by high resolution electron microscopy (HREM) under chemically sensitive imaging conditions. The analysis of the interfacial chemical profile using HREM must be performed under analysis conditions for which a known and unique relationship between image contrast and composition occurs. This condition may not be satisfied in cases in which more than two chemical constituents interdiffuse and the diffusivities of these elements are not equal, as a range of similar lattice fringe motifs across the interface, representing different “diffusion paths”, could occur. The complementary nature of information provided by HREM and STEM provides a means of resolving this ambiguity.

The crystalline structure, the morphology and the chemistry of small Ag particles vacuum-deposited on preheated MgO microcubes were characterized by in situ and ex situ electron microscopy and surface analysis techniques. Observations were made of the nucleation and growth of Ag clusters on MgO surfaces and along surface steps. It is found that Ag particles deposited onto clean MgO crystals have an epitaxial orientation relationship of (100)Agll(100)MgO with [100]Agll[00]MgO. Prior to air exposure Ag particles are stable under the electron beam but they become unstable upon exposure to air. During electron irradiation on air-exposed samples terraces are formed on the surfaces of MgO cubes, preferentially near Ag particles and at their interfaces with the substrate. The stability of vacuum-deposited Ag particles and the growth of the terraces on MgO microcubes seem to depend on air exposure of the sample.

Online video recording with a high-resolution electron microscope has been used to study real-time atomic events occurring at cadmium telluride surfaces over a range of temperatures from 27°C to 500°C. Using the profile imaging mode of observation, different types of surface activity have been documented on (001), (111) and (110) surfaces. For example, the (001) surfaces displayed reversible phase transformations between 2× 1 and 3×1 reconstructions at a transition temperature of about 200°C. The (111) surfaces exhibited sublimation by a ledge mechanism that depended upon the terminating surface: layer-by-layer removal invariably occurred for (110) surface terminations whereas bilayer removal was usually seen for terminations by (100) surfaces. Finally, the (110) surface rearranged by a hopping mechanism, but no substantial loss of material was observed.