2009/08/20 by Yu Yang, Jia Li, Zhirong Liu +11 · 7 citations
Chemistry · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Adsorption #Annealing (glass) #Chemistry #Dissociation (chemistry) #Electronic and Structural Properties of Oxides #Physical chemistry #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Surface and Thin Film Phenomena #Thermodynamics #physics.chem-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.80.073406
published in Physical Review B 80(7) (American Physical Society)
openalex publication_date 2009/08/20 · arxiv created 2011/10/27 · arxiv updated 2015/05/14 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We investigate the dissociation of O2 on Pb(111) surface using first-principles calculations. It is found that in a practical high-vacuum environment, the adsorption of molecular O2 takes place on clean Pb surfaces only at low temperatures such as 100 K, but the O2 easily desorbs at (elevated) room temperatures. It is further found that the Pb adatoms enhance the molecular adsorption and activate the adsorbed O2 to dissociate during subsequent room-temperature annealing. Our theory explains the observation of a two-step oxidation process on the Pb surfaces by the unique role of Pb adatoms.