Hydrogen Adsorption on Ir(111), Ir(100) and Ir(110)—Surface and Coverage Dependence

Abstract

Hydrogen adsorption on the perfect Ir(111) as well as the metastable and unreconstructed Ir(100) and Ir(110) surfaces up to saturation coverage has been systematically computed using periodic density functional theory and ab initio atomistic thermodynamics for understanding the interaction mechanism of hydrogen on iridium surfaces. On the Ir(111) surface including van der Waals dispersion, hydrogen adsorption prefers the threefold hollow sites at low coverage and the top sites at high coverage; in agreement with the experiments (Phys. Rev. B 60 (1999) 14016). The computed adsorption energy and desorption temperature of hydrogen agree with the experiments [−0.57 (fcc-3H) and −0.53 (hcp-3H) vs. −0.55 eV; 180 and 325 K vs. 190 and 310 K, respectively]. On the Ir (100) surface, the bridge adsorption sites are preferred in the whole coverage range, in agreement with the LEED pattern (Phys. Rev. B 73 (2006) 75430), however, adsorption energy and desorption temperature are slightly overestimated by including van der Waals dispersion (−1.50 vs. −1.02 ± 0.15 eV; 470 vs. 425 – 389 K). On the Ir(110) surface, short-bridge sites are preferred at low coverage and the top sites become dominant at high coverage, and the calculated desorption temperatures are close to experiments by including van der Waals dispersion (210 and 365 K vs. 220 and 375 K). At low coverage, the different configurations of hydrogen adsorption on the Ir(111) have the similar energies, indicating their negligible repulsive interaction, while the Ir(100) and Ir(110) surfaces prefer regular line-shape adsorption configurations due to attractive interaction, and such adsorption configurations have not been observed experimentally. Our results show that differences in adsorption configurations and energies are associated with their differences in surface structures, and in turn explain the need of different methods in computing the adsorption properties on different surfaces. Such surface-dependent properties should also be possible on other metal surfaces.