Presentation Information
[23p-12F-1]Characterization of molecular water adsorbed on the cerium dioxide (111) surface by means of force spectroscopy
〇Oscar Custance1, Kyungmin Kim2, Daiki Katsube3, Masayuki Abe2, Shigeki Kawai1 (1.NIMS, 2.Osaka Univ., 3.RIKEN)
Keywords:
cerium dioxide,water,atomic force microscopy
Water is involved in important industrially relevant catalytic reactions in which cerium dioxide serves as catalyst or reducible support. While there is wealth of information about the adsorption of water on the CeO2(111) surface from theoretical studies, knowledge from an experimental point of view is still scarce and normally focusing on a collective behavior through spectroscopic techniques averaging over a large surface area. In this contribution, we present a study on the adsorption and behavior of single water molecules on CeO2(111) thin-films grown on a Cu(111) substrate using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and force spectroscopy performed at 4.8K. Our experimental results corroborate the theoretical model for the adsorption of individual water on CeO2(111), and site-specific force spectroscopy on the molecule provides hints about the location of the hydrogen atoms. Comparison with the theoretical models allows us to identify the surface atomic species imaged with AFM, and force spectroscopy on the oxygen and cerium atoms surrounding the molecule unveil an interesting behavior of their chemical reactivity due to the presence of water.