Effect of UHV annealing on morphology and roughness of sputtered $Si(111)-(7\times7)$ surfaces

Abstract

$Ar^+$ ion has been used regularly for the cleaning of semiconductor, metal surfaces for epitaxial nanostructures growth. We have investigated the effect of low-energy $Ar^+$ ion sputtering and subsequent annealing on the $Si(111)-(7\times7)$ surfaces under ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) condition. Using $in-situ$ scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) we have compared the morphological changes to the $Si(111)-(7\times7)$ surfaces before and after the sputtering process. Following $500~eV Ar^+$ ion sputtering, the atomically flat $Si(111)-(7\times7)$ surface becomes amorphous. The average root mean square (rms) surface roughness $({\sigma}_{avg})$ of the sputtered surface and that following post-annealing at different temperatures $(500^\circ-700^\circ)C$ under UHV have been measured as a function of STM scan size. While, annealing at $\sim 500^\circ C$ shows no detectable changes in the surface morphology, recrystallization process starts at $\sim 600^\circ C$. For the sputtered samples annealed at temperatures $\geq 600^\circ C, \,log~\sigma_{avg}$ varies linearly at lower length scales and approaches a saturation value of $\sim 0.6 nm$ for the higher length scales confirming the self-affine fractal nature. The correlation length increases with annealing temperature indicating gradual improvement in crystallinity. For the present experimental conditions, $650^\circ C$ is the optimal annealing temperature for recrystallization. The results offer a method to engineer the crystallinity of sputtered surface during nanofabrication process.