Wet chemical preparation and isotope exchange process of H/D-terminated Si(111) and Si(110) studied by adsorbate vibrational analysis

A convenient procedure for preparing D-terminated Si(111)-(1x1) and Si(110)-(1x1) by wet chemical etching was developed and applied to the vibrational analysis of these surfaces by high-resolution electron-energy loss spectroscopy (HREELS). Fully H-terminated Si(111)/(110) was first prepared in regular 40% NH₄F/H₂O solution, followed by immersion in saturated KF/D₂O solution. HREELS revealed partially D-terminated H:Si(111)/(110) with the amount of deuterium termination depending on the immersion time. A series of various immersion times revealed the H/D exchange reaction kinetics, which are associated with the Si substrate etching processes on Si(111) (step-flow etching) and Si(110) (zipper reaction). The H-Si and D-Si stretching vibration frequencies as functions of the surface D fraction did not appear to change on Si(111), but on Si(110) the H-Si signal red shifted at a high D fraction. This is due to the adsorbate-adsorbate interaction, which is more intense on Si(110) because of the short nearest-neighbor distance of the adsorbates.