Silicon bonding for ultrahigh vaccuum surface science studies

A novel silicon bonding technique and its application for surface science s tudies in a wide temperature range of 30-1400 K is presented. The silicon s ingle crystal is bonded on a polished tantalum plate via thin silver and tu ngsten interlayers deposited by evaporation in high vacuum. Upon annealing the silicon sample is bonded with a strong mechanical and good thermal cont act. Several problems common to alternative sample mounting techniques an s olved by this procedure. Excellent temperature control and small temperatur e gradients across the surface well below 1 K are demonstrated by thermal d esorption data for two different adsorbates: ethane and hydrogen on Si(001) -(2x1). (C) 2001 American Vacuum Society.