Double-pentagon silicon chains in a quasi-1D Si/Ag(001) surface alloy.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 39455548.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-024-53589-4 and PMC identifier 11511886.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Silicon surface alloys and silicide nanolayers are highly important as contact materials in integrated circuit devices. Here we demonstrate that the submonolayer Si/Ag(001) surface reconstruction, reported to exhibit interesting topological properties, comprises a quasi-one-dimensional Si-Ag surface alloy based on chains of planar double-pentagon Si moieties. This geometry is determined using a combination of density functional theory calculations, scanning tunnelling microscopy, and grazing incidence x-ray diffraction simulations, and yields an electronic structure in excellent agreement with photoemission measurements. This work provides further evidence of pentagonal geometries in 2D materials and heterostructures and elucidates the importance of surface alloying in stabilizing their formation.