  We report atomic scale studies of the effect of applied strain and hydrogen
environment on the reconstructions of the (105) Si and Ge surfaces. Surface
energy calculations for monohydride-terminated (001) and (105) reconstructions
reveal that the recently established single-height rebonded model is unstable
not only with respect to (001), but also in comparison to other monohydride
(105) structures. This finding persists for both Si and Ge, for applied biaxial
strains from -4% to 4%, and for nearly the entire relevant domain of the
chemical potential of hydrogen, thus providing an explanation for the recently
observed H-induced destabilization of the Ge(105) surface.
