Current Effects and Surface Morphology on Si Vicinal Surfaces.

A systematic study of specimen heating current effects on Si(111) and (001) vicinal surfaces is summarized briefly in this paper. On the (111) surfaces current direction dependent step bunching and its temperature dependence reported elsewhere on small miscut surfaces were found to be valid also on vicinal surfaces with miscut angles more than 10°. We newly found that below 1200°C step wandering occurs under the current at which step bunching does not take place. On the (001) vicinal surfaces, step bunching independent of the current direction and anisotropy in current effects were observed.