Oxidation of nickel surfaces through the energetic impacts of oxygen molecules: Reactive molecular dynamics simulations.

Abstract

Molecular dynamics approach accompanied by reactive force field is used to study the characteristics of the oxide growth process on Ni(100) and Ni(111) surfaces at the temperatures of 300, 600, and 900 K and 5 eV as the energy of the O2 impacts. The exposure of Ni surfaces to the high-energy O2 impacts indicates that the primary oxide nuclei can be formed on any impact site. The results of kinetic studies clarify that the oxide growth kinetics cannot be accurately explained with the island growth model and increasing the surface temperature raises failure of the model. Under the present conditions, the growth kinetics is found to obey a Langmuir growth model. Increasing the surface temperature from 300 to 900 K results in ∼18.75% and ∼23% more oxygen consumption by (100) and (111) surfaces of Ni, respectively. The structure of nickel oxide (NiO) film formed after 200 successive O2 impacts per surface super-cell is investigated utilizing radial distribution functions and oxygen density profiles. These calculations demonstrate that the structure of the formed NiO film is amorphous. Moreover, the charge profiles in Ni/NiO system are illustrated and discussed.