Seminars Archive

Cyanogen on Pd(110) and Ni(110) surfaces: a HREELS and High-Resolution XPS study

Abstract
After a short historical chronology of adsorption studies of cyanogen on metal single crystal surfaces a brief overview of previously obtained results of C2N2 and CN adsorption on Pd(110) and Ni(110) surfaces is given. These previous studies have established the adsorption geometry and the orientation of the admolecules using ARUPS, TDS and LEED techniques, and set the stage for the recent investigations with HREELS and HR-XPS, which are presented in this talk. The CN stretching vibration as detected in HREELS spectra on Ni(110) suggests a reduction of the C-N bond order from 3 to 2, which is compatible with the proposed adsorption geometry, i.e. parallel to the surface and situated within the grooves of the (110) surface. In addition, a multiplicity of other CN bonding configurations can be created on Ni(110) as revealed by a combination of HREELS and HR-XPS measurements, the latter performed at the VUV beamline at ELETTRA. The coadsorption of CN with CO on Ni(110) is another topic, which has been followed by HREELS and which will be discussed . On Pd(110) the dissociation reaction of C2N2 to CN has been studied directly by fast HR-XPS at the SuperESCA beamline at ELETTRA, and the results and a kinetic evaluation of the data will be presented.