Study of the crystal growth of a (15,17,1) vicinal plane on a Si(110) surface using high‐temperature scanning tunneling microscopy

High‐temperature scanning tunneling microscopy was used to study the crystal growth of a (15,17,1) vicinal plane on a Si(110) surface, and the dynamic behavior of surface Si atoms at high temperature was directly observed. It was found that an impurity hillock, which may be SiC on the surface, pins step flows and bunches them together to form a vicinal plane such as (17,15,1), (17,15,1¯), (15,17,1), and (15,17,1¯) at 710 °C. The vicinal plane has a faceted structure and is formed by a periodic arrangement of monolayer steps and has a terrace of 2.5 nm in the 〈111〉 direction. The step‐edge direction is 〈112〉. At 695 °C, it was also found that the 16 structure was formed on a flat area. It was confirmed that the 16 structure and the vicinal plane (15,17,1) coexisted in a temperature range of about 700 °C to room temperature.