Scanning tunnelling microscopic and theoretical methods furnished evidence that an interplay between surface stress, dangling-bond density and chemical bonding energy could force substrate and adsorbate atoms into interstitial sites. The results were applied to an atomic model for (113). It was shown that antiphase boundaries and point defects were due mainly to misplaced interstitial atoms. Calculations showed that the interstitials were weakly bound and should be released during hetero-epitaxial growth. It was predicted that the defective character of (113) surfaces should not influence the quality of the interface. A study of the Sb/Si(113) system here provided the first demonstration of a chemisorption mechanism which permitted a lowering of the surface energy by forcing host atoms, or atoms of a substitutional impurity, into bulk-like bonds of the substrate. Depending upon the Sb coverage, Si or Sb atoms entered interstitial sites and formed an inserted dimer structure. The geometry and bonding of the new surface reconstruction was closely related to the structure of {113} planar defects in implanted bulk Si.

Local stress, surface reconstruction and bulk defect nucleation H.J.Müssig, J.Dąbrowski: Solid State Phenomena, 1998, 63-64, 261-72