Nucleation and growth of 1D water clusters on rutile TiO2 (011)-2×1

Y. He, W.-K. Li, X.-Q. Gong, O. Dulub, A. Selloni, U. Diebold

Department of Physics, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118, U.S.A.
Research Institute of Industrial Catalysis, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, P.R. China
Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, U.S.A.
Faculty of Material Science and Engineering, Hubei University, 430062 Wuhan, Hubei, China

J. Phys. Chem. C 113 (2009) 10329-10332

We present a combined experimental and theoretical study of the adsorption of water on the rutile TiO2(011)-2×1 surface, whose "brookite (001)-like" reconstruction has been recently elucidated. By using scanning tunneling microscopy and density functional theory calculations, we provide evidence that water adsorbs weakly on the stoichiometric surface, while hydroxyls resulting from water dissociation at surface O vacancies act as nucleation centers for the growth of H-bonded water clusters that are confined in one dimension.

Reprints available from U. Diebold (diebold at iap_tuwien_ac_at).

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