AVS 49th International Symposium
    Surface Science Wednesday Sessions
       Session SS-WeM

Paper SS-WeM5
Microscopic Nature of the Interaction of Water with Noble Metal Surface

Wednesday, November 6, 2002, 9:40 am, Room C-112C

Session: New Opportunities and Technique Innovations
Presenter: H. Fukidome, RIKEN, Japan
Authors: H. Fukidome, RIKEN, Japan
Y. Kim, RIKEN, Japan
Y. Sainoo, University of Tsukuba, Japan
T. Komeda, RIKEN, Japan
H. Shigekawa, University of Tsukuba, Japan
M. Kawai, RIKEN, Japn
Correspondent: Click to Email
Interaction of water on solid surfaces has been one of the central issues in science.It has been, however, hard to microscopically investigate the interaction of water with solid surfaces by traditional macroscopic spectrscopies, such as infrared spectroscopy and electron energy-loss spectroscopy. One of the reasons for this is that water can form various types of cluster owing to its hydrogen-bonding. A STM-IETS, which can do a spectroscopy at a sinlge-molecular level,@footnote 1@ was used in our work in order to microscopically study the interaction of water with Pd(110) surface. In our STM-IETS spectra of water monomer, a huge and asymmetrical feature appeared at 57 meV. This can be assigned to the frustrated translational mode of water perpendicular to the surface (Tz).@footnote 2@ On the contrary, no feature was absent at 57 meV in a spectra of water tetramer. The above-mentioned asymmetrical lineshape of the Tz mode of water monomer arises from the interference between elastic and inelastic tunneling processes. More interestingly, the lineshape of the Tz mode drastically changed within the molecule. This drastic change is caused by the mixing of two molecular orbitals that are responsible for the tunneling processes associated with Tz mode. A comparison between our STM-IETS results and a detailed theory now under construction would tell the microscopic picture of the interaction of water molecules with metal surfaces that has ever remained to be seen. @FootnoteText@ @footnote 1@ B.C. Stipe, M.A. Rezaei, and W. Ho, Science 280 (1998) 1732.@footnote 2@ R. Brosseau, T.H. Ellis, and M. Morin, J.Vac.Sci.Technol. A8 (1990) 2454.