The structures and variation of vacancy ordering in epitaxial DySi thin films on 111/Si

Epitaxial DySi2yx films were grown in a-Si 15 nm.rDy 30 nm.r 111.Si samples annealed at 7008C for 10 min in an ultrahigh vacuum chamber. From the electron diffraction pattern analysis, the structure of the epitaxial DySi2yx thin films were determined to consist of a superstructure of anʹ3 =ʹ3 R 308 vacancy ordering structure with an out-of-step structure. The three-dimensional structure of theʹ3 =ʹ3 R 308 vacancy ordering was determined to be ʹ3 =ʹ3 R 308 2c.. The periodicity along the c-axis of the out-of-step vacancy ordering structure with Ms2 was also analyzed to be 2c. The intrinsic structure was found to transform to various modulated structures by ion bombardment during cross-sectional transmission electron microscope TEM.sample preparation. q1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.