Spin controlled surface chemistry: alkyl desorption from Si(100)-2×1 by nonadiabatic hydrogen elimination.

An understanding of the role that spin states play in semiconductor surface chemical reactions is currently limited. Herein, we provide evidence of a nonadiabatic reaction involving a localized singlet to triplet thermal excitation of the Si(100) surface dimer dangling bond. By comparing the β-hydrogen elimination kinetics of ethyl adsorbates probed by thermal desorption experiments to electronic structure calculation results, we determined that a coverage-dependent change in mechanism occurs.