Faceting structure with step bunching and faceting dynamics induced by 7 x 7 surface reconstruction on vicinal Si(111) was studied by Monte Carlo simulation, with the use of the extended terrace-step-kink model to take reconstruction into account. The attractive interaction between neighbouring reconstruction units induced the faceting structure in the thermal equilibrium. The calculated local vicinal angle in the step bunching region becomes independent on the global vicinal angle, and it increases as the temperature decreases due to the suppression of the entropy effect. From the simulation of quenching, it was found that the reconstructed (111) facets arise from multiple nucleation of the critical size of reconstruction units and grow via both reducing of the step spacing in step bunches and the rearrangement of a step among step bunches. The calculated results qualitatively explain the observed behaviour.

Step Bunching Induced by 7 x 7 Surface Reconstruction on Vicinal Si(111). A.Natori, T.Arai, H.Yasunaga: Surface Science, 1994, 319[3], 243-50