An XPS study of the water adsorption on Cu(110)

The adsorption of H₂O on clean and oxygen precovered Cu(110) is studied at temperatures between 90 and 300 K by XPS. On the oxygen precovered surface three O(1s) emission lines are detected at lower temperature. They originate from adsorbed atomic oxygen, from OH groups, and from H₂O molecules. For an oxygen coverage of half a monolayer, XPS indicates that during H₂O decomposition the preadsorbed oxygen does not directly participate in the OH formation. After water adsorption on the clean surface three O(1s) emission lines are found, which are due to H₂O molecules, “disturbed” H₂O molecules, and OH groups. The XPS results are directly correlated with information about the adsorbates obtained by UPS. Coverages are determined from the XPS spectra for the detected species.