Atomic diffusion inside a STM junction: simulations by kinetic Monte Carlo coupled to tunneling current calculations

The influence of a static scanning tunneling microscope (STM) tip on the diffusion of xenon atoms adsorbed on a Cu(1 1 0) stepped surface is studied. Semi-empirical potentials for the Xe-surface interaction and a N-body energy based method for the Xe-tip contribution are used to calculate the adsorption energy of adsorbates in the STM junction. First, we analyse the variation of this energy when the adatom is placed near a step edge and for different tip positions. When the tip is situated in the neighbourhood of the step edge, the Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier experienced by the adatom is lowered. This opens a specific diffusion channel, allowing a possible crossing of the step edge. Second, through a kinetic Monte Carlo approach coupled to the elastic scattering quantum chemistry method, the noisy tunneling current created by the random motion of diffusing atoms in the vicinity of the tip can be analyzed. We show that, by counting the number of diffusion events, we can determine effective barriers related to the most dominant processes contributing to the diffusion at a particular temperature. We also demonstrate that the interaction mode of the tip (attractive or imaging) greatly modifies the diffusion processes.     

A theoretical explanation of the surface diffusion mechanism in metal electrodes in contact with electrolytes

A theoretical explanation for the surface diffusion mechanism observed in columnar structured metal electrodes in contact with electrolytes is given. The potential energy of a surface metal atom on which ions forming part of the supporting electrolyte are adsorbed is described by means of an anharmonic oscillator curve whereas the energy of a surface metal atom liberated from any adsorption interaction is approximated by a harmonic oscillator energy fuction. Geometric arguments allow to define a symmetry factor δ for which experimental values were previously obtained. A qualitative interpretation of the value of δ has been made.     

Flux to a trap

The flux of particles to a single trap is investigated for two systems: (1) particles in 3D space which jump a fixed step lengthl (the Rayleigh flight) and are adsorbed by a spherical surface, and (2) particles on a lattice, jumping to nearest neighbor sites, with a single adsorbing site. Initially, the particles are uniformly distributed outside the traps. When the jump length goes to zero, both processes go over to regular diffusion, and the first case yields the diffusive flux to a sphere as solved by Smoluchowski. For nonzero step length, the flux for large times is given by a modified form of Smoluchowski's result, with the effective radius replaced byR-cl, wherec=0.29795219 andcl is the Milne extrapolation length for this problem. For the second problem, a similar expression for the flux is found, with the effective trap radius a function of the lattice (sc, bcc, fcc) being considered.     

Destabilizing effect of a surface electric field generated by ionic adsorption on the molecular orientation of nematic liquid crystals

The destabilizing effect of a surface electric field, produced by selective ionic adsorption, on the molecular orientation of a nematic-liquid-crystal sample is analyzed for a cell in the shape of a slab of thickness d. The electric-field distribution considered in the analysis is the one obtained in the limit in which essentially all the positive ions are adsorbed. Because of the coupling of this surface field with the nematic director, the surface anchoring energy depends on the thickness of the sample as well as on the adsorption energy characterizing the surfaces. A relation connecting the threshold field for the destabilization of the homeotropic pattern to the adsorption energy and to the thickness of the sample is established in closed form, after solving a set of two coupled non-linear equations determining the electric-field distribution across the sample. It is shown that the values of surface electric field generated by adsorbed ions that can lead to a destabilization of the homeotropic alignment can be attained by real samples.     

Entropic effects in diffusion-adsorption processes in micropores

We analyze the kinetics of diffusion-adsorption processes of one component systems in micropores. In realistic situations, the pores exhibit irregular forms which give rise to inhomogeneous adsorption with preferred sites for the adsorbing particles. By modeling the tortuosity of the pores by means of entropic barriers, we obtain a kinetic equation for the averaged concentration of particles along the pore and on its surface. The analysis performed yields expressions for the adsorption rate, the effective diffusion coeffcient, the adsorption isotherms and the concentration of the adsorbed particles. It is shown that this last quantity strongly depends on the form of the pore. This feature opens the possibility to design micropores with an optimal adsorption rate at selected sites. Our results show that to consider the geometry of the pore in the reaction-diffusion scheme is crucial to reproduce experimental observations of the concentration of adsorbed particles in micropores.     

Investigation of the interaction of some astrobiological molecules with the surface of a graphite (0 0 0 1) substrate. Application to the CO, HCN, H2O and H2CO molecules

Detailed interaction potential energy calculations are performed to determine the potential energy surface experienced by the molecules CO, HCN, H₂O and H₂CO, when adsorbed on the basal plane (0 0 0 1) of graphite at low temperatures. The potential energy surface is used to find the equilibrium site and configuration of a molecule on the surface and its corresponding adsorption energy. The diffusion constant associated with molecular surface diffusion is calculated for each molecule.     

Adsorption of V on a hematite (0 0 0 1) surface and its oxidation: Submonolayer coverage

The adsorption of submonolayer V on an idealized model hematite (0 0 0 1) surface and subsequent oxidation under atomic O adsorption are studied by density functional theory. The preferred adsorption sites, adsorption energy and configuration changes due to V and O adsorption are investigated. It is found that in most cases V forms threefold bonds with surface O atoms, inducing a large geometry change at the hematite surface and near surface region and a bond stretch between surface Fe and O. The adsorption energy is mainly decided by interplay between adsorbed metal-surface oxygen bonding and adsorbed metal - subsurface metal interaction. The relative energy of subsequent O adsorption and geometry depends on the reformed V/hematite structure. Electronic properties such as projected densities of states and chemical state change upon V adsorption are studied through both periodic slab and embedded cluster localized orbital calculations; both strong vanadium-oxygen and vanadium-iron interactions are found. While V generally donates electrons to a hematite surface, causing nearby Fe to be partially reduced, the Fe and V oxidization state depends very much on the coverage and detailed adsorption configuration. When the V/hematite system is exposed to atomic O, V is further oxidized and surface/near surface Fe is re-oxidized. Our theoretical results are compared with X-ray surface standing wave and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic measurements. The influence of d-electron correlation on the predicted structures is briefly discussed, making use of the DFT + U scheme.     

A Diffusion Limit for a Test Particle in a Random Distribution of Scatterers

We consider a point particle moving in a random distribution of obstacles described by a potential barrier. We show that, in a weak-coupling regime, under a diffusion limit suggested by the potential itself, the probability distribution of the particle converges to the solution of the heat equation. The diffusion coefficient is given by the Green–Kubo formula associated to the generator of the diffusion process dictated by the linear Landau equation.     

Diffusion of adsorbates on random alloy surfaces

In this work the diffusion of non-interacting adsorbates on a random AB alloy surface is considered. For this purpose a simple cubic (sc), body-centered cubic (bcc) or face-centered cubic (fcc) auxiliary metal lattice is introduced. The auxiliary lattice is truncated parallel to its (100) plane in such a way that the fourfold hollow positions of the metal surface form a regular net of adsorption sites with square symmetry. The adsorption energy of each adsorption site is determined by its own environment, i.e. by the numbers of direct A or B neighbors. The Monte-Carlo method has been utilized to simulate surface diffusion of adsorbates on such energetically heterogeneous alloy surfaces and to calculate the tracer, jump and chemical diffusion coefficients. The chemical diffusion coefficient was calculated via two different approaches: the fluctuation and the Kubo-Green method. The influence of energetical heterogeneities on the surface diffusion is largely pronounced at low temperatures and low surface coverages, where most of the adatoms are trapped by deep adsorption sites. It was found that at low temperatures the sequential occupation of the different types of adsorption sites can be observed. Received: 24 October 1997 / Accepted: 17 December 1997     

Mott Law as Lower Bound for a Random Walk in a Random Environment

We consider a random walk on the support of an ergodic stationary simple point process on ℝ^d, d≥2, which satisfies a mixing condition w.r.t. the translations or has a strictly positive density uniformly on large enough cubes. Furthermore the point process is furnished with independent random bounded energy marks. The transition rates of the random walk decay exponentially in the jump distances and depend on the energies through a factor of the Boltzmann-type. This is an effective model for the phonon-induced hopping of electrons in disordered solids within the regime of strong Anderson localization. We show that the rescaled random walk converges to a Brownian motion whose diffusion coefficient is bounded below by Mott's law for the variable range hopping conductivity at zero frequency. The proof of the lower bound involves estimates for the supercritical regime of an associated site percolation problem.     

基于密度泛函理论研究掺杂Pd石墨烯吸附O2及CO

基于第一性原理的密度泛函理论研究了单个O₂和CO气体分子吸附于本征石墨烯和掺杂钯(Pd)的石墨烯的体系, 通过石墨烯掺Pd前后气体分子的吸附能、电荷转移及能带和态密度的计算, 发现掺Pd后气体分子吸附能和电荷转移显著增大, 这是由于Pd的掺杂, 在本征石墨烯能带中引入了杂质能级, 增强了石墨烯和吸附气体分子间的相互作用; 氧化性气体O₂和还原性气体CO吸附对石墨烯体系能带结构和态密度的影响明显不同, 本征石墨烯吸附O₂后, 费米能级附近态密度变大, 掺Pd后在一定程度变小; 吸附还原性的CO后, 石墨烯费米能级附近态密度几乎没有改变, 表明掺杂Pd不会影响石墨烯对CO的气体灵敏度, 但由于CO对石墨烯的吸附能增大, 可以提高石墨烯对还原性气体的气敏响应速度.     

Theoretical insight of adsorption thermodynamics of multifunctional molecules on metal surfaces

Adsorption thermodynamics based on density functional theory (DFT) calculations are exposed for the interaction of several multifunctional molecules with Pt and Au(1 1 0)-(1 × 2) surfaces. The Gibbs free adsorption energy explicitly depends on the adsorption internal energy, which is derived from DFT adsorption energy, and the vibrational entropy change during the chemisorption process. Zero-point energy (ZPE) corrections have been systematically applied to the adsorption energy. Moreover the vibrational entropy change has been computed on the basis of DFT harmonic frequencies (gas and adsorbed phases, clean surfaces), which have been extended to all the adsorbate vibrations and the metallic surface phonons. The phase diagrams plotted in realistic conditions of temperature (from 100 to 400 K) and pressure (0.15 atm) show that the ZPE corrected adsorption energy is the main contribution. When strong chemisorption is considered on the Pt surface, the multifunctional molecules are adsorbed on the surface in the considered temperature range. In contrast for weak chemisorption on the Au surface, the thermodynamic results should be held cautiously. The systematic errors of the model (choice of the functional, configurational entropy and vibrational entropy) make difficult the prediction of the adsorption-desorption phase boundaries.     

Electrostatic Nature of Size Dependences of Adsorption Properties of Ytterbium Nanofilms Grown on the Surface of Silicon: the CO–Yb–Si(111) System

The adsorption of CO molecules onto ytterbium nanofilms with their thickness varying from 1 to 16 monolayers is studied. The dependences of the number of adsorbed CO molecules (adsorption isotherms) and the work function of ytterbium films on the dose of carbon monoxide are examined. It is demonstrated that both the number of adsorbed molecules and the work function depend (under equal conditions) on the nanofilm thickness; in other words, a size effect is revealed. It is found that this size effect is induced by the electrostatic interaction between the conduction electrons of ytterbium and the electrons localized on the nanofilm surface, which establish bonding between the surface and CO molecules. This interaction depends on the film thickness and limits the number of CO molecules that may be adsorbed onto the surface of a film with a given thickness.

     

Random walks interacting with evolving energy landscapes

We introduce a diffusion model for energetically inhomogeneous systems. A random walker moves on a spin-S Ising configuration, which generates the energy landscape on the lattice through the nearest-neighbors interaction. The underlying energetic environment is also made dynamic by properly coupling the walker with the spin lattice. In fact, while the walker hops across nearest-neighbor sites, it can flip the pertaining spins, realizing a diffusive dynamics for the Ising system. As a result, the walk is biased towards high energy regions, namely the boundaries between clusters. Besides, the coupling introduced involves, with respect the ordinary diffusion laws, interesting corrections depending on either the temperature and the spin magnitude. In particular, they provide a further signature of the phase-transition occurring on the magnetic lattice.     

Chemical adsorption of C60 on diamond (100)(2×1) surfaces

Molecular-dynamics simulations (MDSs) and ab initiocalculations are used to investigate the adsorption behavior of C₆₀ molecules on a clean dimer-reconstructed (100)(2×1) diamond surface. C₆₀ molecules have some probability to be adsorbed on the diamond surface at low incident energy (6∼45 eV). Electron-density contours show strong chemical interaction between C₆₀ molecules and the substrate surface. The adsorption property depends strongly on the incident energy and the impacting point. An incident energy of 18 eV may be an appropriate energy to grow a sub-monolayer or monolayer C₆₀ film on a clean C(100)(2×1) surface at room temperature. Received: 5 July 2000 / Accepted: 17 October 2000 / Published online: 28 February 2001     

Computer simulations of the adsorption and diffusion processes of 1-butene in MCM-22 zeolite

The adsorption and diffusion of 1-butene in purely siliceous MCM-22 zeolite have been studied by the grand canonical Monte Carlo and molecular dynamic simulation. The adsorption behavior of 1-butene was explored in detail from adsorption sites, interaction energies. The mass clouds show that 1-butene can be adsorbed freely in MCM-22 zeolite, and adsorbed preferentially in 10-MR (member rings) channel system with high interaction energy. The diffusion characteristic for 1-butene in two independent channel systems was investigated by using molecular dynamic simulation. The results were obtained by analysis the trajectories of diffusion and the diffusion coefficients, which shows that a large diffusion for 1-butene in both channel systems, especially in the supercage system. The adsorption and the diffusion of the hydrocarbon molecules were affected by the different sizes and structures of 10-MR and 12-MR in MCM-22 zeolite. Moreover, the positions where the molecules are expected to react were revealed.     

pH-dependent structure and energetics of H2O/MgO(100)

The structure and energetics of water on MgO(100) surfaces are studied by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and density-functional theory (DFT). Computationally, the adsorption of water monomers, small water clusters and water monolayers on MgO(100) surfaces is considered. The calculations predict the non-dissociative adsorption for water monomers. The potential energy surface for single monomers is characterized by very low diffusion barriers. Increasing water coverage leads to the formation of structures containing alternatively dissociated and molecularly adsorbed water molecules. The magnitude of the calculated adsorption energy per water molecule increases from 0.57 eV for the water monomer to 0.79 eV for the water monolayer. The present experimental and theoretical results show furthermore that the stability of MgO(100) surfaces in the presence of water depends on its pH value. The etching of MgO(100) surfaces in aqueous medium is studied with the AFM in situ with pH value changing from basic to acidic. While the atomically flat MgO(100) surface remains stable in basic and neutral pH ranges, it is easily etched when the pH turns below a value of 6. This agrees qualitatively with the present DFT calculations showing that square pits resulting from the etching reduce the MgO(100) surface energy in acidic environments.     

A TDS and HREELS study of CO adsorbed on a potassium promoted Fe(111) surface

The adsorption behavior of CO on a potassium promoted Fe(111) surface was investigated in the range from zero to several monolayers of preadsorbed potassium. TD spectra show that the presence of potassium decreases the amount of CO which is desorbed in the α (molecular) desorption state and increases the desorption temperature of this state. In addition, it gives rise to second, β (recombination) desorption state which is correlated to K desorption. The total CO uptake is comparable to that for the clean surface for precoverages of up to one monolayer, beyond this, however, it increases and at three potassium monolayers it is about twice the clean surface value. At K precoverages above 0.5 monolayer the initial sticking coefficient for CO is greatly reduced so that CO exposures of up to several thousand Langmuirs are required in order to saturate the surface. The three stretch frequencies which are observed in HREELS for CO adsorbed on clean Fe(111) are all affected by the presence of potassium. At potassium precoverages between zero and 0.5 monolayers these frequencies shift both in energy and relative intensity; however, between 0.5 and 1 preadsorbed potassium monolayers the spectra are greatly modified and now show only two losses in the CO stretch region. The lower-frequency one of these gives evidence for a close interaction of CO with the coadsorbed potassium.     

Structural,electronic and magnetic properties of the 3d transition metal atoms adsorbed on boron nitride nanotubes

Adsorption configurations for a series of transition metal (TM) 3d atoms adsorbed on the zigzag (8, 0) BNNT at five different sites have been investigated using the first-principles PAW potential within DFT under GGA. The most stable adsorption sites are different for different TM atoms. Partially filled 3d metals V, Cr and Mn can bind strongly with zigzag (8, 0) BNNT, and Sc, Ti, Co and Ni can be chemically adsorbed on the (8, 0) BNNT. The binding between the Fe or Cu atom and the BNNT is only marginal. One unusual case is Zn. Its zero binding energy independent of the adsorption sites implies it can only physically adsorbed on the BNNT mainly stemmed from the van de Waals interaction. Electronic structure analyses show that: (1) for each TM atom adsorbed at five different sites, the total DOS curves of both majority and minority spins make a slightly relative shift along the energy axis, and for each site the total DOS of the minority spin shifts slightly in high energy direction with respect to that of the majority spin lead to a exchange splitting, except fully filled 3d metals Cu and Zn; (2) total DOS curves of both the majority and minority spins for the adsorbed systems shift to the lower energy region compared with that of the pristine (8, 0) BNNT. And the smaller 3d electrons number of the TM atom, the larger shift to the lower energy region of its DOS curves; (3) for V-, Mn- and Fe-adsorbed (8, 0) BNNT, only one type of electrons (either majority spin or minority spin) passes through the Fermi level implies these adsorbed systems are all half-metals.