The formation and annihilation of stacking-fault half-units in dimer-adatom stacking-fault structures on the (111) surface were investigated quantitatively by making scanning tunnelling microscopic observations of the quenched surface at temperatures ranging from 380 to 500C. It was revealed that the formation rate of the stacking fault half units increased with the numbers of corner holes which were shared with the pre-existing dimer-adatom stacking-fault domain, and decreased with the size of the stacking-fault half unit. Annihilation of a stacking-fault half unit which shared one corner hole became more frequent than its formation at higher temperatures. From Arrhenius plots, the activation energies for formation and annihilation were deduced to be about 1.5 to 1.7eV and 2.4eV, respectively.

Formation and Annihilation of Various Stacking-Fault Half-Units in Dimer-Adatom Stacking-Fault Structures on Quenched Si(111) Surfaces. T.Ishimaru, T.Hoshino, K.Shimada, T.Yamawaki, I.Ohdomari: Physical Review B, 2000, 61[23], 15577-80