• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.15-23
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• 2009

Saturation-coverage silyl, $-SiH_3(a)$, overlayers were prepared from $Si_2H_6$ adsorption on three comparative surfaces: clean unmodified; D-precovered; and atomically roughened Si(100). Together with its precursor-mediated adsorption behavior, the surface reactivity of $Si_2H_6$ was found to be the highest on the unmodified Si(100)-$2{\times}1$ surface. This was correlated with its dissociative adsorption mechanism, in which both the $H_3Si-SiH_3$ bond scission and the dual surface $Si-SiH_3(a)$ bond formation require a surface dangling bond 'pair'. The unusually high thermal stability of $-SiH_3(a)$ on the unmodified surface was ascribed to a nearly close-packed $-SiH_3(a)$ coverage of ${\sim}0.9$ monolayer and the consequent lack of dangling bonds on the silyl-packed surface.