Assignment of surface IR absorption spectra observed in the oxidation reactions: 2H + H2O/Si(1 0 0) and H2O + H/Si(1 0 0)

Infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy that used buried metal layer substrates (BML-IRRAS) and density functional cluster calculations were employed to investigate the water related oxidation reactions of 2H + H2O/Si(1 0 0)-(2 × 1), 2D + H2O/Si(1 0 0)-(2 × 1), and H2O + H/Si(1 0 0)-(2 × 1). In addition to the oxygen inserted coupled monohydrides, which were previously reported in the former reaction system, we report several other oxidized Si hydride species in our BML-IRRAS experiments. Three new pairs of vibrational bands are identified between 900 and 1000 cm−1. These vibrational frequencies were calculated using Si9 and Si10 cluster models that included all possible structures from zero to five oxygen insertions into the top layer silicon atoms using a B3LYP gradient corrected density functional method with a polarized 6-31G** basis set for all atoms. The three pairs of vibrational modes are assigned to the scissoring modes of adjacent and isolated SiH2 with zero, one, and two oxygen atoms inserted into the Si back bonds. All the other newly observed vibrational peaks related to Si oxidation are also assigned in this study. The Si–O stretching bands observed in the reaction 2D + H2O/Si(1 0 0)-(2 × 1) show an isotope effect, which suggests that in the system 2H + H2O/Si(1 0 0)-(2 × 1) also, hydrogen atom tunneling plays an important role for the insertion of oxygen atoms into Si back bonds that form oxidized adjacent dihydrides.