Recently current effects on clean and metal adsorbate surfaces have attracted much attention not only because of interesting phenomena but also because of practically importance in treatingclean and metal adsorbate surfaces [1-6]. In the former case, metals deposited migrate on the deposit depending on the current direction and a patch of the deposit expands on the clean surface [1]. The migration is closely related to the adsorbate structures and substrate structures including their anisotropy [2,7]. In the latter case, configurations of surface atomic steps depends on the current direction. In the case of Si(001) surface equally spaced array of monatom high steps along the [110] direction produces the 2x1 and 1x2 terraces. However, a relative terrace width of the two domain depends on the current direction; a step-up current widen terraces on which dimers are parallel to the current, while a step-down current widen the other terraces [3]. On (111) surface, a step-down current produces step bunching at temperatures between 1250-1350°C, while a step-up current produces step bunching at temperatures between 1050-1250°C [5].In the present paper, our REM observations on a current induced step bunching, started independently, are described.Our results are summarized as follows.(1) Above around 1000°C a step-up current induces step bunching. The phenomenon reverses around 1200 C; a step-down current induces step bunching. The observations agree with the previous reports [5].
Using the Wigner–Ibach surmise to analyze terrace-width distributions: history, user’s guide, and advances