Structural Relaxations of Atomic Wires Fabricated on Hydrogen-Terminated Silicon Surfaces

Abstract

Manipulating atoms and fabricating desired atomic structures would be of great importance for future electronics. Structures of those artificial objects, however, may not be formed as designed, because of electronic and structural relaxations. We have fabricated one-atom-wide structures with various atomic lengths using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), and examined structural relaxations. Based on the STM results and first-principals theoretical calculations, we report on length-dependent structural relaxations in these structures and effects of odd-even issues and atom-wire edges.