The
reactions of boric acid and 4-fluorophenylboronic acid with
H- and Cl-terminated Si(100) surfaces in solution were investigated.
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) studies reveal that both molecules
react preferentially with Cl–Si(100) and not with H–Si(100)
at identical conditions. On Cl–Si(100), the reactions introduce
boron onto the surface, forming a Si–O–B structure.
The quantification of boron surface coverage demonstrates that the
4-fluorophenylboronic acid leads to ∼2.8 times higher boron
coverage compared to that of boric acid on Cl–Si(100). Consistent
with these observations, density functional theory studies show that
the reaction of boric acid and 4-fluorophenylboronic acid is more
favorable with the Cl- versus H-terminated surface and that on Cl–Si(100)
the reaction with 4-fluorophenylboronic acid is ∼55.3 kJ/mol
more thermodynamically favorable than the reaction with boric acid.
The computational studies were also used to demonstrate the propensity
of the overall approach to form high-coverage monolayers on these
surfaces, with implications for selective-area boron-based monolayer
doping.