Self-consistent van der Waals density functional study of benzene adsorption on Si(100)

The adsorption of benzene on the Si(100) surface is studied theoretically using the self-consistent van der Waals density functional (vdW-DF) method. The adsorption energies of two competing adsorption structures, butterfly (BF) and tight-bridge (TB) structures, are calculated with several vdW-DFs at saturation coverage. Our results show that recently proposed vdW-DFs with high accuracy all prefer TB to BF, in accord with more accurate calculations based on exact exchange and correlation within the random-phase approximation. Detailed analyses reveal the important roles played by the molecule-surface interaction and molecular deformation upon adsorption, and we suggest that their precise description is a prerequisite for accurate prediction of the most stable adsorption structure of organic molecules on semiconductor surfaces.