Theoretical Investigations for Kinetics of the Chemical Reactions: H + SiClx(x= 1, 2, 3)

Hydrogen atoms and SiClx(x= 1, 2, 3) radicals coexist during the hydrogenation of silicon tetrachloride (STC, SiCl4), an important process in the fabrication of industrial polysilicon. In this work, the mechanisms and kinetics of the reactions between H and SiClx(x= 1, 2, 3) were studied by theory. The structures and vibrational frequencies of reactants, products, intermediates, and transition states (TSs) were determined at the B2PLYP/may-cc-pVTZ level. The single-point energies of minima and saddle points were refined using the coupled-cluster single–double with triple perturbative (CCSD(T)) with the complete basis set extrapolation method. Some special treatments were designed to obtain reliable wave functions for unimolecular reactions without tight TSs by the density functional theory. Subsequently, Lennard-Jones (L-J) parameters between each intermediate (SiHClx) and bath gas (He) were obtained at the MP2/jul-cc-pVTZ level to derive reliable temperature- and pressure-dependent rate coefficients for unimolecular reactions according to the variational Rice–Ramsperger–Kassel–Marcus theory. For bimolecular reactions, rate coefficients were determined by the variational transition-state theory. The rate coefficients of barrierless reactions were derived based on the loose TSs with the maximum free energy. Finally, the master equation analysis was used to investigate the variation of the rate coefficients with pressure and temperature in the activated paths.