Abstract
Surface chemistry and catalysis studies could significantly gain from the systematic variation of surface active sites, tested under the very same conditions. Curved crystals are excellent platforms to perform such systematics, which may in turn allow to better resolve fundamental properties and reveal new phenomena. This is demonstrated here for the carbon monoxide/platinum system. We curve a platinum crystal around the high-symmetry (111) direction and carry out photoemission scans on top. This renders the spatial core-level imaging of carbon monoxide adsorbed on a ‘tunable' vicinal surface, allowing a straightforward visualization of the rich chemisorption phenomenology at steps and terraces. Through such photoemission images we probe a characteristic elastic strain variation at stepped surfaces, and unveil subtle stress-release effects on clean and covered vicinal surfaces. These results offer the prospect of applying the curved surface approach to rationally investigate the chemical activity of surfaces under real pressure conditions.
Highlights
Surface chemistry and catalysis studies could significantly gain from the systematic variation of surface active sites, tested under the very same conditions
Scanning the curved surface (z-scanning) with standard probes (LEED, scanning tunnelling microcopy (STM) and X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS)) allows the imaging of very subtle d-dependent properties, which may be critical to physical-chemical processes
We have demonstrated the full potential of this approach with a Pt(111) curved crystal
Summary
Surface chemistry and catalysis studies could significantly gain from the systematic variation of surface active sites, tested under the very same conditions. This renders the spatial core-level imaging of carbon monoxide adsorbed on a ‘tunable’ vicinal surface, allowing a straightforward visualization of the rich chemisorption phenomenology at steps and terraces Through such photoemission images we probe a characteristic elastic strain variation at stepped surfaces, and unveil subtle stress-release effects on clean and covered vicinal surfaces. Technical limitations can be significantly overcome with a reduced cylindrical section around a highsymmetry direction[7,8,9,10] This allows a thorough analysis of vicinal planes making use, and benefiting from the most sophisticated and accurate surface science probes, such as high-resolution X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS). For the CO-chemisorbed system we probe, with unprecedented resolution, the hierarchy of CO-chemisorption sites at different crystal planes, and unveil a characteristic C 1s shift, likely due to a step-induced compressive-stress-release of the CO-saturated (111) surface
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