Atomic-Scale View of the Oxidation and Reduction of Supported Ultrathin FeO Islands.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 31513376.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/acsnano.9b05470.
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Abstract
By means of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) measurements, we studied <i>in situ</i> the oxidation and reduction of FeO bilayer islands on Au(111) by oxygen (O<sub>2</sub>) and hydrogen (H<sub>2</sub>), respectively. The FeO islands respond very dynamically toward O<sub>2</sub>, with the coordinatively unsaturated ferrous (CUF) sites at the island edges being essential for O<sub>2</sub> dissociation and O atom incorporation. An STM movie obtained during oxidation reveals how further O<sub>2</sub> molecules can dissociate after the consumption of all initially existing CUF sites through the formation of new CUF sites. In contrast, we found that H<sub>2</sub> molecules only dissociate when vibrationally excited through the ion gauge and only at the basal plane of FeO islands, implying that the CUF sites are not relevant for H<sub>2</sub> dissociation. Our STM results reveal how excess O atoms are incorporated and released in O<sub>2</sub> and H<sub>2</sub> and thus shed light onto the stability of inverse catalysts during a catalyzed reaction.