RESUMO
Density functional theory with the addition of a semi-empirical dispersion potential was applied to the conventional Kohn-Sham energy to study the adsorption of alkene and alkyne molecules on hydrogen-terminated two-dimensional group IV systems (graphane, silicane, and germanane) by means of a radical-initiated reaction. In particular, we investigated the interactions of acetylene, ethylene, and styrene with those surfaces. Although we had studied these systems previously, we included van der Waals interactions in all of the cases examined in the present work. These forces, which are noncovalent interactions, can heavily influence different processes in molecular chemistry, such as the adsorption of organic molecules on semiconductor surfaces. This unified approach allowed us to perform a comparative study of the relative reactivities of the various organic molecule/surface systems. The results showed that the degree of covalency of the surface, the lattice size, and the partial charge distribution (caused by differences in electronegativity) are all key elements that determine the reactivity between the molecules and the surfaces tested in this work. The covalent nature of graphane gives rise to energetically favorable intermediate states, while the opposite polarities of the charge distributions of silicane and germanane with the organic molecules favor subsequent steps of the radical-initiated reaction. Finally, the lattice size is a factor that has important consequences due to steric effects present in the systems and the possibility of chain reaction continuation. The results obtained in this work show that careful selection of the substrate is very important. Calculated energy barriers, heats of adsorption, and optimized atomic structures show that the silicane system offers the best reactivity in organic functionalization.
RESUMO
Silicene, the silicon analogous of graphene, is a newly synthesized two-dimensional nanomaterial, with unique features and promising potential applications. In this paper we present density functional theory calculations of the organic functionalization of hydrogenated silicene with acetylene, ethylene, and styrene. The results are compared with previous works of the adsorption on H-Si[111]. For styrene, binding energies for the intermediate and final states as well as the energy barrier for hydrogen abstraction are rather similar for the two systems. On the other hand, results for acetylene and ethylene are surprisingly different in H-silicene: the abstraction barrier is much smaller in H-silicene than in H-Si[111]. These differences can be understood by the different electrostatic potentials due to the presence of the H atoms at the bottom of the silicene bilayer that allows the delocalization of the spin density at the reaction intermediate state.