Adsorption processes of hydrogen molecules on SiC(001), Si(001) and C(001) surfaces

Adsorption processes of hydrogen molecules on the Si(001)-(2× 1) and C(001)-(2× 1) surfaces are discussed in light of our previous studies of H2 adsorption on the related SiC(001)-c(4× 2) surface. Very amazingly, there are pathways above the latter on which hydrogen molecules can adsorb dissociatively at room temperature. One of these pathways has not been considered before for adsorption of H2 on the Si(001)-(2× 1) or C(001)-(2× 1) surface. Therefore, we report first-principles investigations of the reaction of molecular hydrogen with the Si(001)-(2× 1) and C(001)-(2× 1) surfaces on this new adsorption pathway in addition to those that have been studied before. In spite of a number of similarities, the three surfaces show distinct differences as well, giving rise to spectacularly different reactivities with hydrogen molecules. This is due to the fact that the reaction of H2 with semiconductor surfaces depends crucially on intricate combined effects of the arrangement of surface dimers, as well as the orientation of their dangling bond orbitals. In addition, the chemical nature of the surface atoms has a pronounced effect on the spatial extent of dangling bond orbitals which influences the adsorption behaviour markedly as well. In agreement with experiments, our results show that Si(001)(2× 1) and C(001)-(2× 1) are inert to H2 adsorption at room temperature for all investigated pathways which exhibit substantial energy barriers. For the two reaction pathways that have been investigated before, our results are in good accord with those of previous density functional and quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) calculations. As a matter of fact, the new reaction channel studied in 1 Present address: Condensed Matter Theory Group, Department of Physics, Uppsala University, PO Box 530, SE-751 21 Uppsala, Sweden. 2 Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed. New Journal of Physics 10 (2008) 125028 1367-2630/08/125028+19$30.00 © IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft