TY - JOUR
T1 - Identification of adsorbed molecules via STM tip manipulation
T2 - CO, H2O, and O2 on TiO2 anatase (101)
AU - Setvin, Martin
AU - Daniel, Benjamin
AU - Aschauer, Ulrich
AU - Hou, Weiyi
AU - Li, Ye Fei
AU - Schmid, Michael
AU - Selloni, Annabella
AU - Diebold, Ulrike
PY - 2014/9/17
Y1 - 2014/9/17
N2 - While Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) has evolved as an ideal tool to study surface chemistry at the atomic scale, the identification of adsorbed species is often not straightforward. This paper describes a way to reliably identify H2O, CO and O2 on the TiO2 anatase (101) surface with STM. These molecules are of a key importance in the surface chemistry of this and many other (photo-) catalytic materials. They exhibit a wide variety of contrasts in STM images, depending on the tip condition. With clean, metallic tips the molecules appear very similar, i.e., as bright, dimer-like features located in the proximity of surface Ti5c atoms. However, each species exhibits a specific response to the electric field applied by the STM tip. It is shown that this tip-adsorbate interaction can be used to reliably ascertain the identity of such species. The tip-adsorbate interactions, together with comparison of experimental and calculated STM images, are used to analyse and revisit the assignments of molecular adsorbed species reported in recent studies.
AB - While Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) has evolved as an ideal tool to study surface chemistry at the atomic scale, the identification of adsorbed species is often not straightforward. This paper describes a way to reliably identify H2O, CO and O2 on the TiO2 anatase (101) surface with STM. These molecules are of a key importance in the surface chemistry of this and many other (photo-) catalytic materials. They exhibit a wide variety of contrasts in STM images, depending on the tip condition. With clean, metallic tips the molecules appear very similar, i.e., as bright, dimer-like features located in the proximity of surface Ti5c atoms. However, each species exhibits a specific response to the electric field applied by the STM tip. It is shown that this tip-adsorbate interaction can be used to reliably ascertain the identity of such species. The tip-adsorbate interactions, together with comparison of experimental and calculated STM images, are used to analyse and revisit the assignments of molecular adsorbed species reported in recent studies.
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U2 - 10.1039/c4cp03212h
DO - 10.1039/c4cp03212h
M3 - Article
C2 - 25186563
AN - SCOPUS:84907829345
SN - 1463-9076
VL - 16
SP - 21524
EP - 21530
JO - Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics
JF - Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics
IS - 39
ER -