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Density-functional study of hydrogen chemisorption on vicinal Si(001) surfaces
Relaxed atomic geometries and chemisorption energies have been calculated for
the dissociative adsorption of molecular hydrogen on vicinal Si(001) surfaces.
We employ density-functional theory, together with a pseudopotential for Si,
and apply the generalized gradient approximation by Perdew and Wang to the
exchange-correlation functional. We find the double-atomic-height rebonded D_B
step, which is known to be stable on the clean surface, to remain stable on
partially hydrogen-covered surfaces. The H atoms preferentially bind to the Si
atoms at the rebonded step edge, with a chemisorption energy difference with
respect to the terrace sites of >sim 0.1 eV. A surface with rebonded single
atomic height S_A and S_B steps gives very similar results. The interaction
between H-Si-Si-H mono-hydride units is shown to be unimportant for the
calculation of the step-edge hydrogen-occupation. Our results confirm the
interpretation and results of the recent H_2 adsorption experiments on vicinal
Si surfaces by Raschke and Hoefer described in the preceding paper.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. B. Other related
publications can be found at http://www.rz-berlin.mpg.de/th/paper.htm