| The understanding and utilization of electronic transport phenomena in low-dimensional, quantum-confined structures is of enormous scientific and technological interest. We have studied the electrical transport properties of systems that are quantum confined in one dimension but periodic in the other two dimensions, namely surfaces and ultrathin film materials. The electrical conductance of atomically clean, reconstructed silicon surfaces and interfaces was measured as a function of temperature in ultrahigh vacuum using the classical four-point probe technique. We employed Silicon on Insulator (SOI) technology to enhance the surface sensitivity of the four-point probe measurements. High-quality ohmic contacts were fabricated using ion-implantation.; The Si(100)2 x 1 surface reconstruction consists of a two-dimensional, anti-ferromagnetic c(4 x 2) array of buckled silicon dimers. The surface undergoes a c(4 x 2) → 2 x 1 order-disorder transition near T = 200 K. Above 200 K, dimers fluctuate rapidly and the long-range c(4 x 2) ordering is destroyed. The conductance of this two-dimensional system has a temperature-dependence that is characteristic of a metal. The surface conductance appears closely correlated with the order parameter of the low-temperature c(4 x 2) structure. Thermally activated flip-flop motion of the Si dimers thus appears to be the dominant scattering mechanism.; Recent high-resolution photoemission experiments indicate that the Si(111)7 x 7 surface reconstruction is a two-dimensional, correlated metal. The surface electrical conductivity decreases with increasing temperature, thus confirming metallic transport. However, conductivity measurements on ultrathin SOI indicate insulating behavior. The origin of this discrepancy is not understood and requires further investigation of the sheet conductance as a function of the SOI layer thickness.; The Ga/Si(112) interface consists of a self-assembled, mesoscopic array of atomic Ga wires on a high-index Si(112) surface. The structural uniformity of this atomic-wire-or quantum-wire array is far superior to those created by nano-lithography or STM atom manipulation. Transport measurements reveal a strong conductance anisotropy as expected. However, the conduction channels are orthogonal to the crystallographic chains. This counterintuitive result is in excellent agreement with electronic structure calculations by Ortega and Flores. The theoretical band structure was confirmed independently with photoemission spectroscopy. |
