The surface was cleaned in situ by short-time annealing of the sample at 1250C under a base pressure of 5 x 10−11mbar. Various scanning tunnelling microscopic images of this surface were obtained, in spite of an identical experimental cleaning procedure. All of the images indicated that a surface reconstruction took place, with the formation of a Si(113)-(3 x 2) structure. They could be explained on the basis of a ball model. Thus, the differences between the images were not attributed to changes in the surface structure, but to tip-related electronic artefacts.

The Reconstruction of the Si(113) Surface Studied by Scanning Tunnelling Microscope. W.Arabczyk, S.Hinrich, H.J.Müssig: Vacuum, 1995, 46[5-6], 473-6