Interactions between alkali metals and oxygen on a reconstructed surface: An STM study of oxygen adsorption on the alkali-metal-covered Cu(110) surface

R. Schuster, J. V. Barth, J. Wintterlin, R. J. Behm, and G. Ertl
Phys. Rev. B 50, 17456 – Published 15 December 1994
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Abstract

Room-temperature adsorption of oxygen on potassium- and cesium-precovered Cu(110) surfaces was studied by scanning tunneling microscopy. Depending on the alkali-metal precoverage, two different scenarios exist for the structural evolution of the surfaces. For alkali-metal coverages θalk≤0.13 ML [θalk=0.13 corresponds to the (1×3) missing-row reconstructed Cu(110) surface], oxygen adsorption leads first to a transient contraction of the missing rows into islands of a (1×2) structure. After longer exposures it causes the local removal of the alkali-metal-induced reconstruction, and the (2×1) Cu-O ‘‘added-row’’ structure with θO=0.5 is formed. In this structure the alkali-metal atoms are incorporated in the Cu-O chains. For higher alkali-metal precoverages, in the range of the (1×2) reconstruction (θalk≊0.2), more than one-half a monolayer of oxygen can be incorporated into the (1×2) phase with only a minor structural effect before, at higher oxygen coverages, complex oxygen–alkali-metal–Cu structures with oxygen coverages well above 0.5 ML are formed. The saturation oxygen coverage is drastically enhanced beyond θO=0.5, the quasisaturation value of the clean surface. Based on mass-transport arguments the substrate is reconstructed for all ratios of oxygen and alkali metal investigated here. Hence, adsorbate-substrate interactions are essential for these structures; they are not dominated by interactions between alkali metals and oxygen, i.e., by adsorbate-adsorbate interactions.

  • Received 8 August 1994

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.50.17456

©1994 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

R. Schuster, J. V. Barth, J. Wintterlin, R. J. Behm, and G. Ertl

  • Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Faradayweg 4-6, D-14195 Berlin, Germany

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Issue

Vol. 50, Iss. 23 — 15 December 1994

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