Ruthenium-Platinum Thin Film Analysis Using Grazing Incidence X-ray Diffraction

Abstract

Ruthenium (Ru, Z = 44) is a Platinum Group Metal that has a standard hexagonal close packed (HCP) crystalline structure. Platinum (Pt, Z = 78) has a face-centered cubic (FCC) crystalline structure. When these metals are co-sputtered onto a silicon substrate, creating a few nm-thin film, they form an alloy with a combination of HCP and FCC structure. Direct methanol fuel cells rely on an anode catalyst to draw hydrogen from liquid methanol. Highly efficient fuel cells based on polymer electrolyte catalysts, known as proton-exchange membrane fuel cells, have been developed, but require large amounts of a costly platinum catalyst. Thin-film nanostructure bimetallic alloys have been produced to reduce the amount of expensive Platinum needed for catalysis, and also to improve the electrochemical properties of the catalyst. Supported RuPt particles have been shown to have superior activity as anode catalysts for methanol electro-oxidation and demonstrate an improvement in resistance to poisoning in comparison to unalloyed Pt. The percentage of Ruthenium in a RuPt thin film and the process by which the alloy is produced will dictate the crystalline structure, and thus the electrochemical properties of the film. Pure Ruthenium, Pure Platinum, and eight intermediate samples at differing percent composition ofmore » Ruthenium were characterized by their X-ray diffraction patterns. The incident beam is from the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory beam and operates at approximately a 1.4 Angstrom wavelength. The results show that 0% Ru through 46.17% Ru exhibit a majority FCC structure, 56.07% Ru and 60.61% Ru are mixed phase, and from 67.03% Ru through 100% Ru, the samples exhibit a HCP structure.« less