5. Phase transitions

5.1 Deconstruction

Increasing the temperature of a reconstructed solid surface activates the defect creation processes, leading to surface disorder. This is how we can understand the disappearance of the reconstruction of certain surfaces at high temperatures. The reversible transformation of the 7 × 7 reconstruction to the apparent 1 × 1 structure of the (111) silicon surface is described as the disappearance of stacking faults and dimers from the reconstruction, replaced by a quarter monolayer of disordered...