Dylan C. Kershner, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309 and Will Medlin, Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309.
The adsorption and reaction of silane has been studied on clean and oxygen-covered Pd(111) using temperature programmed desorption (TPD), Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), high-resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy (HREELS), and density functional theory (DFT). These studies reveal that silane decomposes at low temperatures to produce hydrogen (which is oxidized to water in the presence of oxygen) and a surface silicide. Under appropriate conditions, the surface silicide reacts with oxygen on the surface to produce a partially oxidized silicon layer. This surface chemistry may provide a gateway for development of model systems to explore chemistry at metal-SiO2 interfaces; such metal-SiO2 interfacial chemistry is important for a variety of applications including heterogeneous catalysis and chemical sensing.