| AVS 65th International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Surface Science Division | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session SS+HC+NS+PS-TuM |
| Session: | Controlling Mechanisms of Surface Chemical Reactions |
| 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 on the nanostructured metal oxide surfaces has implications in catalysis and serves as a prototypical system in studying water-oxide interfaces. In many cases, the water molecules form hydrogen bonded clusters or extended networks on surfaces. On a bilayer ZnO/Au(111) surface, two types of cyclic triangular water clusters are found to be formed at a specific Moire domain. By using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and density functional theory (DFT) calculations, the behavior of the water clusters on the bilayer ZnO surface have been further interrogated. The configurations of the two types of cyclic water clusters can be converted to each other by the excitation from the STM tip at a threshold energy. In addition, another pathway for the cluster configuration change was identified at a higher electron energy where the cyclic water clusters could be turned into non-cyclic clusters reversibly. The physical origin of the configuration changes will be discussed.