Directed self-assembly of Ge nanostructures on very high index, highly anisotropic Si(hkl) surfaces

Families of very high-index planes, such as those which bifurcate spontaneously to form a hill-and-valley structure composed of opposing facets, provide natural templates for the directed growth of position-controlled self-organized nanostructures with shapes determined by the facet width ratio R. For example, deposition of a few ML of Ge on Si(173 100 373), corresponding to R(113/517) = 1.7, results in a field of 40-nm-wide Ge nanowires along [72 187 84] with a uniform period of 60 nm.