Mn silicide nanowires on the Si(001)-2×1 surface having anisotropic strain fields with Bi nanolines

As a magnetic material, manganese silicide has potential applications in spintronics.1 Theoretical investigations have found manganese silicide on the Si(001)-2 ×1 surface to be ferromagnetic.2 The growth of nanowires of manganese silicide on Si(001) could therefore lead to interesting 1D magnetic properties. Self-organization on templates has attracted sustained interest as a method to drive the formation of structures constrained in one or both surface directions, to form nanowires or nanocluster arrays.3 During the past two decades, various mechanisms involving anisotropy, whether in the surface energy or epitaxial mismatch, have been proposed to guide the formation of nanowires on flat terraces. In our previous work, we have found that self-assembled Bi nanolines, 4 which grow along the [110