Atomic and electronic-band structures of anomalous carbon dimers on 3C - SiC(001) - c(2 × 2)

Abstract

The atomic structure of the c(2×2) reconstruction of the C-terminated 3C-SiC(001) surface was unambiguously determined by scanning tunneling microscopy and surface-core-level-resolved photoelectron diffraction studies. This surface is found to uniquely and uniformly consist of anomalous bridge-bonded C dimers with a C-C bond length of 1.22 Å. Furthermore, an extensive angle-resolved photoemission study clearly identifies two occupied p state bands due to the surface-normal and -parallel p orbitals of the triple-bonded C dimers. This provides an electronic explanation of the stability of this unique surface reconstruction. 1999 © The American Physical Society.