Role of Initial Vibrational and Rotational Reactant Excitation for the Reaction Dynamics of H2(ν0,J0) with Si+(2P)

Construction of diabatic potential energy surfaces for the SiH2+ system and dynamics studies of the Si+(2P1/2, 3/2) + H2 reaction

The construction of diabatic potential energy surfaces (PESs) for the SiH2+ system, related to the ground (12A') and excited states (22A'), has been successfully achieved. This was accomplished by utilizing high-level ab initio energy points, employing a neural network fitting method in conjunction with a specifically designed function. The newly constructed diabatic PESs are carefully examined for dynamics calculations of the Si+(2P1/2, 3/2) + H2 reaction. Through time-dependent quantum wave packet calculations, the reaction probabilities, integral cross sections (ICSs), and differential cross sections (DCSs) of the Si+(2P1/2, 3/2) + H2 reaction were reported. The dynamics results indicate that the total ICS is in excellent agreement with experimental data within the collision energy range studied. The results also indicate that the SiH+ ion is hardly formed via the Si+(2P3/2) + H2 reaction. The results from the DCSs suggest that the "complex-forming" reaction mechanism predominates in the low collision energy region. Conversely, the forward abstraction reaction mechanism is dominant in the high collision energy region.

Controlled growth of silicon nanocrystals in a plasma reactor

Using a powerful multilevel simulation approach, we "visualize" the complete growth dynamics of hydrogenated silicon nanostructures under realistic experimental conditions of a plasma reactor. For the early stages of the synthesis, we demonstrate for the first time how precise control of atomic hydrogen not only permits one to choose between the production of amorphous and crystalline nanoparticles, but also to "steer" the growth toward the formation of elementary "building blocks" for the synthesis of hexagonal silicon nanowires.

Ion−Molecule Reaction Mechanism of SiCN+/SiNC+ + HX (X = H, CH3, F, OH, NH2)

In contrast to the abundant data on the neutral-neutral reactions, little is known about the ion-molecule reactions involving silicon ions. A detailed mechanistic study at the B3LYP/6-311G(d,p) and CCSD(T)/6-311+G(2df,p) (single-point) computational levels was reported for the reactions of SiCN+/SiNC+ with a series of -bonded molecules HX (X = H, CH3, F, NH2). Together with the recently studied SiCN+/SiNC+ + H2O reactions, all of these reactions have nucleophilic substitution as their major pathway. Insertion is a much slower reaction. By contrast, the known atomic Si+ and C2N+ ion-molecule reactions go by insertion. Generally, the initial gas-phase condensation between SiCN+/SiNC+ and HX (except the nonionic H2) effectively forms the adduct HX...SiCN+/HX...SiNC+. The stability of the adduct increases with the electron-donating ability of X. Even at low temperatures, reactions with the electron donors NH3, H2O, and HF proceed rapidly to generate the fragments SiX+ + HCN (dominant) and SiX+ + HNC (minor). This suggests that such reactions may be useful in the synthesis of novel Si-X bonded species. However, the reactions of SiCN+ with completely saturated CH4 and H2 produce fragments only at high temperatures, and SiNC+ may even be unreactive. The calculated results may be helpful for understanding the chemistry of SiCN-based microelectric and photoelectric processes in addition to astrophysical processes in which the [Si,C,N]+ ion is involved. The results can also provide useful mechanistic information for the analogous ion-molecule reactions of the monovalent silicon-bearing ions.