AVS 63rd International Symposium & Exhibition
    Surface Science Wednesday Sessions
       Session SS+AS-WeM

Paper SS+AS-WeM11
Observation of Water Adsorption Structures on Ultrathin ZnO/Au(111)

Wednesday, November 9, 2016, 11:20 am, Room 104E

Session: Environmental Interfaces, Ambient Surfaces, and In-Operando Studies
Presenter: Junseok Lee, National Energy Technology Laboratory
Authors: J. Lee, National Energy Technology Laboratory
D.C. Sorescu, National Energy Technology Laboratory
X. Deng, National Energy Technology Laboratory
Correspondent: Click to Email
Adsorption of water at the nanostructured metal oxide surfaces has implications in catalysis and serves as a prototypical system in studying water-oxide interfaces. In this work, the adsorption of water on ultrathin ZnO nanostructures grown on Au(111) substrate is investigated using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Water overlayers are grown on well-defined monolayer and bilayer of ZnO nanostructures. STM images of water overlayer structures on the monolayer and the bilayer of ZnO nanostructures at low temperature are analyzed in detail at different water coverages with the help of DFT calculation results. Moire pattern is found to influence the adsorption structure of water on the ZnO nanostructure surfaces and the brightness of the Moire pattern of the ZnO structure is observed to be significantly modulated by the adsorption of water molecule. Various hydrogen bonded water network structures are observed on ZnO bilayer after desorbing excess water molecules. The edge of the ZnO monolayer is found to be decorated by water molecules up to room temperature but there was no evidence of adsorption of water at the edge of ZnO bilayer.