AVS 59th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition
    Surface Science Tuesday Sessions
       Session SS+NS-TuA

Paper SS+NS-TuA11
The Growth and Structures of Metal Nanoparticles on Ordered ZrO2(111) Surfaces

Tuesday, October 30, 2012, 5:20 pm, Room 21

Session: Reactivity of Size and Shape Selected Nanoparticles
Presenter: J.F. Zhu, University of Science and Technology of China
Authors: Y. Han, University of Science and Technology of China
S.W. Hu, University of Science and Technology of China
Y.H. Pan, University of Science and Technology of China
J.B. Hou, University of Science and Technology of China
H.B. Pan, University of Science and Technology of China
J.F. Zhu, University of Science and Technology of China
Correspondent: Click to Email
Metal nanoparticles supported on zirconia have attracted much attention in recent years owing to their variety of technological applications such as heterogeneous catalysis and gas sensor operation. In particular, as catalysts, the interface properties of metal/ZrO2 referring to the morphology, charge transfer, thermal stability and reactivity play crucial roles in determining their real applications. In this presentation, we report our recent studies on the growth, electronic structures and thermal stabilities of metal nanoparticles (Cu, Ag and Au) on well-defined ZrO2 thin films by synchrotron radiation photoemission spectroscopy (SRPES) together with scanning tunneling microcopy (STM) and low electron energy diffraction (LEED). The well-defined ZrO2(111) oxide thin films were epitaxially grown on Pt(111). It was found that the growth behavior of metals on ZrO2(111) strongly depends on the morphologies of oxide surfaces and the interfacial interactions between the metal deposits and the ZrO2(111) films. The binding energies of all three metal core-level peaks shift monotonically toward higher binding energy with decreasing the metal particle sizes. The contributions of initial and final state effects to the core level binding energy shifts are differentiated using the Auger parameters. At very low coverages, most likely Au forms Auδ-, while Ag remains the metallic state and Cu forms Cu+ on ZrO2(111).