Evidence of electronic growth in titanium- and cobalt-silicide islands

A possibility of growing highly mismatched and yet two-dimensional heteroepitaxial deposits, is both fascinating in terms of basic science and technologically important. So far, stabilization of flat morphology by a reduction of the overall electron energy in a quantum well (hence termed ‘‘electronic growth’’), has been observed exclusively in heteroepitaxy of simple metals, lead, and silver. This work shows, that a broader class of functional materials can be grown ‘‘electronically,’’ such as titaniumand cobalt-silicide nano-islands on Si(111), despite their more complex electronic structure.