Computational investigation of surface reactivity of functionalized silicon surfaces in deposition processes

The Chemistry of Inorganic Precursors during the Chemical Deposition of Films on Solid Surfaces

The deposition of thin solid films is central to many industrial applications, and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) methods are particularly useful for this task. For one, the isotropic nature of the adsorption of chemical species affords even coverages on surfaces with rough topographies, an increasingly common requirement in microelectronics. Furthermore, by splitting the overall film-depositing reactions into two or more complementary and self-limiting steps, as it is done in atomic layer depositions (ALD), film thicknesses can be controlled down to the sub-monolayer level. Thanks to the availability of a vast array of inorganic and metalorganic precursors, CVD and ALD are quite versatile and can be engineered to deposit virtually any type of solid material. On the negative side, the surface chemistry that takes place in these processes is often complex, and can include undesirable side reactions leading to the incorporation of impurities in the growing films. Appropriate precursors and deposition conditions need to be chosen to minimize these problems, and that requires a proper understanding of the underlying surface chemistry. The precursors for CVD and ALD are often designed and chosen based on their known thermal chemistry from inorganic chemistry studies, taking advantage of the vast knowledge developed in that field over the years. Although a good first approximation, however, this approach can lead to wrong choices, because the reactions of these precursors at gas-solid interfaces can be quite different from what is seen in solution. For one, solvents often aid in the displacement of ligands in metalorganic compounds, providing the right dielectric environment, temporarily coordinating to the metal, or facilitating multiple ligand-complex interactions to increase reaction probabilities; these options are not available in the gas-solid reactions associated with CVD and ALD. Moreover, solid surfaces act as unique "ligands", if these reactions are to be viewed from the point of view of the metalorganic complexes used as precursors: they are bulky and rigid, can provide multiple binding sites for a single reaction, and can promote unique bonding modes, especially on metals, which have delocalized electronic structures. The differences between the molecular and surface chemistry of CVD and ALD precursors can result in significant variations in their reactivity, ultimately leading to unpredictable properties in the newly grown films. In this Account, we discuss some of the main similarities and differences in chemistry that CVD/ALD precursors follow on surfaces when contrasted against their known behavior in solution, with emphasis on our own work but also referencing other key contributions. Our approach is unique in that it combines expertise from the inorganic, surface science, and quantum-mechanics fields to better understand the mechanistic details of the chemistry of CVD and ALD processes and to identify new criteria to consider when designing CVD/ALD precursors.

Universal Calibration of Computationally Predicted N 1s Binding Energies for Interpretation of XPS Experimental Measurements

Computationally predicted N 1s core level energies are commonly used to interpret the experimental measurements obtained with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. This work compares the application of Koopmans' theorem to core electrons using the B3LYP functional with two commonly used basis sets, analyzes the factors relevant to the comparison of the computational with experimental data, and presents several correlations that allow an accurate prediction of the N 1s binding energy. The first correlation is obtained with a series of known nitrogen-containing functional groups on well-characterized organic monolayers. This approach can then be reliably extended to a number of nitrogen-containing chemical systems on silicon surfaces in which the nature of the chemical environment of nitrogen atoms had only been proposed based on a number of analytical techniques. In most of those cases, the XPS analysis is consistent with the proposed structures, but is not always sufficient for conclusive assignments. Third, it was attempted to also include N-containing systems on metals. Despite the admittedly oversimplified approach taken in this case (the metal surface is approximated by a single atom), the observed correlations are still experimentally useful, although in this case significant outliers are found. Finally, previously published correlations between experimental and theoretical C 1s data were reexamined, yielding a set of correlations that allow experimentalists to predict C 1s and N 1s XPS spectra with high accuracy.

Selectivity and Mechanism of Thermal Decomposition of β-diketones on ZnO Powder

The thermal chemistry of β-diketones underlies a number of catalytic processes related both to the catalytic reactions yielding commodity chemicals and to the production of supported transition metal catalysts themselves. The mechanisms of decomposition during thermal transformation of three β-diketones, acetylacetone (acacH), 1,1,1-trifluoroacetylacetone (tfacH), and 1,1,1,5,5,5-hexafluoroacetylacetone (hfacH), were studied on ZnO powder surface using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and Density functional theory (DFT) computational investigation. The initial O-H dissociation leads to the formation of corresponding β-diketonates in all the cases investigated. These diketonates are important surface intermediates that can be generated in a controlled manner in these experiments. The presence on the C-CF₃ entity determines the preferred thermal decomposition pathways, as the C-C bond in this group starts to react with a surface of ZnO around 400 K, followed by immediate decomposition of the resulting CF₃ group. Above 600 K, the presence of the CF₃-substituent leads to the formation of ketene-like structures observed by vibrational spectroscopy. The reaction mechanisms examined with the help of DFT calculations are correlated with vibrational signatures of the species produced and with the F-containing species recorded by XPS.