A THEORETICAL-STUDY OF ADSORPTION EQUILIBRIA IN SILICON CVD

As part of a theoretical study of adsorption processes in the chemical vapour deposition of silicon, thermochemical data are derived for the adsorption of Si-H species on the Si(111) and the dimer-reconstructed Si(001)-(2 x 1) surfaces. Essential contributions to the heats of adsorption appear to be electron pairing and two- and three-body interactions. It is shown that when the bond energies are defined in this way, also a consistent description of the bonds in silicon hydrides is provided. This demonstrates that with reasonable confidence the method can be applied to the adsorption process itself. Data are derived for species which may form one, two or even four bonds with the surface. It is assumed that on the (111) surface adsorbates bind on the "dangling bonds" which are present on this surface in a broken bond model. It is demonstrated that on the dimer reconstructed Si(001)-(2 x 1) surface, adsorbates will either bind on the surface atoms with one or two bonds, without the breaking of the dimer bonds, or, if the species have the possibility to form two or four bonds with the surface atoms, may become inserted into the dimer bonds. With the aid of the derived thermochemical data for adsorption and the Langmuir isotherm or modifications thereof, the coverage of the Si(111) and the dimer reconstructed Si(001)-(2 x 1) surfaces with species from the Si-H system is calculated. It is found that the equilibrium surface coverages of the Si(111) and the Si(001)-(2 x 1) surfaces are very similar: the hydrogen coverage is high at all temperatures, while at low supersaturation the coverage with growth species is very low on both surfaces. © 1990.