Picture of the month - October 2021

Let us eat some tortillas!
This picture is an AFM image of the reconstructed 6H-SiC (0001) surface on pure silicon at 1700 °C. The triangular structures were formed due to the nucleation from silicon droplets. The thickness of the “tortilla chips” is only 0.25 nm, which corresponds to one Si-C bilayer in the 6H-SiC crystal.





About the author: Xinming XING is a 3rd year PhD student in EPM groupe working on the “Study of the SiC-liquid interface at high temperature: from basic understanding to micro-nano-patterning”.