The formation of a dimer-adatom stacking-fault domain in unreconstructed regions was observed, on quenched (111) surfaces, by means of scanning tunnelling microscopy at 370 to 380C. It was observed that a single faulted (F)-half of the unit cell of the dimer-adatom stacking-fault structure was created from a corner hole of existing odd-sized F-halves at the edge of the dimer-adatom stacking-fault domain. It was demonstrated that the formation of the F-half in the domain growth obeyed the sequential size-change model, which had been proposed to be the formation mechanism of single isolated F-halves. The smallest dimer-adatom stacking-fault domain consisted of 3 F-halves of the same size; arranged as a triangle.

Scanning Tunnelling Microscopic Observation of the Formation of the Smallest Dimer-Adatom Stacking-Fault Domain on a Quenched Si(111) Surface. W.Shimada, H.Tochihara, T.Sato, M.Iwatsuki: Japanese Journal of Applied Physics - 1, 2000, 39[7B], 4408-11