Atomic structure of a regular Si(2Â 2Â 3) triple step staircase

An atomically accurate regular triple step array with a period of 4.8 nm has been fabricated on the vicinal Si(5 5 7) surface. Its atomic structure was studied on different length scales by scanning tunneling microscopy, low energy electron diffraction and photoelectron spectroscopy. These complementary methods allowed to identify the average orientation of the regular triple step staircase as Si(2 2 3) and to give a deeper insight into the atomic arrangement of this structure.