The Effects of alloying and segregation for the reactivity and diffusion of oxygen on CuAu(111)

Oka, Kohei*; Tsuda, Yasutaka*; Makino, Takamasa*; Okada, Michio*; Hashinokuchi, Michihiro*; Yoshigoe, Akitaka ; Teraoka, Yuden; Kasai, Hideaki*

Oxidation of CuAu(111) by a hyperthermal O molecular beam was investigated by synchrotron X-ray photoemission spectroscopy. From the incident-energy dependence of O-uptake curve, dissociative adsorption of O is less effective on CuAu(111) than on Cu(111). The dissociative adsorption is accompanied by the Cu segregation on CuAu(111) as well on CuAu(100) and CuAu(110). Obvious growth of CuO cannot be observed at incident energy of 2.3 eV and it suggests that Au-rich layers prevent the diffusion of O atoms into bulk. Density functional theory calculations indicate that O adsorption shows same behavior on CuAu(111) and on Cu(111). The barrier of diffusion into subsurface in segregated CuAu(111) is higher than that of Cu(111). It indicates that segregated Au-rich layer works as a protective layer.