Influence of the Preliminary Annealing Conditions on Step Motion at the Homoepitaxy on the Si(100) Surface

In this paper, the motion of steps S
A
and S
B
on the Si(100) surface in the process of Si Molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) is explored. The study was carried out by means of the reflection intensity dependence behavior analysis of reflection high-energy electron diffraction (RHEED) corresponding to the (2×1) and (1×2) reconstructions. Superstructural rearrangement from a two-domain to a single-domain surface is associated with the bilayer step formation, which occurs due to the different motion rates of the steps S
A
and S
B
. Based on the research conducted, the conditions under which the step doubling occurs were determined. A behavior analysis of the diffraction reflection intensity dependences showed that an increasing of preliminary annealing time and temperature facilitates to the faster convergence of the steps S
A
and S
B
, but to the slower recovery of the initial surface. The presented experimental results indicate that step movement rate difference depends on the step A edge kink density.