ACS Nano
Hydrogen dangling bonds are highly reactive and their selective exposure on hydrogenated Si(001) using scanning probes is developing as a powerful lithography to pattern molecules and atoms. We have found that hydrogen is more weakly bound along the centre of Haiku stripes, thus offering a new, fully scalable thermodynamic route to produce very long dangling bond rows in large numbers to self-assemble long chains of atoms and molecules. Our STM study further reveals an unexpected flat dimer configuration, possibly stabilized by the local strain induced by the Haiku core structure.