Quantum Theory of Advanced Materials

When disilane (Si2H6) is used in the homoepitaxial growth of Si by chemical vapor deposition (CVD), the fragment SiH2 is believed to be the basic unit adsorbed on the surface. The bonding site of SiH2 on Si(100) has been proposed in the literature to be either on top of a dimer (the on-dimer site) or between two dimers in the same row (the intrarow site). Since the pathway of SiH2 combination is dependent on the adsorption site, a first-principles calculation will shed light on the underlying process. We have performed self-consistent pseudopotential density-functional calculations within the local-density approximation. On the bare Si(100) surface, the on-dimer site is found to be more stable than the intrarow site, even though the former has unfavorable Si-Si bond angles. This is ascribed to the extra dangling bond created in the latter geometry when the weak dimer a bonds are broken. However, the presence of hydrogen adatoms eliminates this difference and makes the intrarow site more favorable than the on-dimer site. It is therefore revealed in this theoretical study that hydrogen, an impurity unavoidable in the CVD process, plays an important role in determining the stable configuration of adsorbed SiH2 on Si(100) and hence affects the growth mechanism. [S0163-1829(98)52544-1].