Scanning Tunneling Microscope Study of the Structural Transformation of the Si(111)7×7 Surface to the Na-Induced 3×1 Surface

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Abstract
The structure of the Na-induced Si(111) 3×1 surface has been studied using a field-ion-scanning-tunneling-microscope. The STM images showed that the entire Si surface was uniformly covered with a single layer of atomically resolved Na 3×1 structure. Upon annealing, the Na layer peeled off gradually, revealing the underlying Si substrate, which exhibited various intermediate reconstructions such as 2×2, 5×5, and 9×9 before the 7×7 structure was restored at 800°C. Our observations suggest that the top layer of the Si substrate converts to the bulk terminated 1×1 structure upon Na deposition and annealing.