Abstract
Group III. and IV. metals on Si(100) surface tend to form long monoatomic chains. The chains represent a 1D system which is used to study self-organized growth and relationship between morphology of a thin lm and its electronic structure.
Morphology and growth characteristics of indium, gallium and tin chains have been described in literature, but less attention has been given to aluminium chains. Although aluminium chains grow in similar manner, they dier from the others in morphology: they contain kinks and consist of three types of objects with dierent brightness in STM image.
It has been generally considered that unlike other metals, aluminium chains consist only of dimers. Here we show that there can be monomers at the ends of chains (single-atom terminations) and their presence allows us to explain some of the special features of the aluminium deposit at low temperature.