Adsorption and desorption of samarium atoms on the surface of pure iridium and iridium covered with a graphite monolayer

Abstract

Methods of thermionic emission and thermodesorption spectroscopy (TDS) have been used to study the adsorption and condensation of samarium on the surface of pure iridium and iridium covered with a graphite monolayer (valence-saturated neutral substrate) Ir(111)-C. It is shown that at temperatures of 700 < T a < 1200 K the work function φ decreases monotonically from 5.8 to 2.7 eV and during the subsequent deposition of samarium grows slowly to 2.9 eV. It has been found that in all TDS peaks there were observed several phases of samarium. The deposition of samarium onto an Ir-C surface at 700 < T < 1700 K led to a very weak change in the thermionic current in comparison with pure iridium. At temperatures above ∼700 K, samarium is not condensed on the surface of Ir-C, but it is condensed at lower temperatures. By the method of temperature modulation, the heat of samarium desorption was determined to be E ∼ 1.9 eV upon the desorption from an Ir-C surface (at a small coverage) and ∼6 eV upon the desorption from pure Ir.