Low energy electron diffraction of epitaxial growth of bismuth on Si(1Â 1Â 1)

The epitaxial growth of Bi on Si(1 1 1) studied by spot profile analyzing low energy electron diffraction shows for low coverage rotationally disordered Bi cluster with preferred orientations following the threefold symmetry of the Si substrate. With further deposition the Bi cluster coalesces and the surface orientation changes from the pseudo cubic Bi(1 1 0) surface orientation of the Bi cluster into the hexagonal Bi(1 1 1) surface of the resulting Bi film.