The effects of temperature upon NiO formation and oxygen removal on Ni(110)

Oxygen chemisorption and NiO nucleation and growth on Ni(110) have been studied with low energy electron diffraction and Auger electron spectroscopy. Changes in the Auger peak energies and shapes were shown to occur only upon NiO formation. The effects of step-changes in temperature upon NiO nucleation and growth were studied and it was shown that temperature steps or annealing during the chemisorption regime did not significantly affect either chemisorption or NiO formation. During NiO growth, temperature steps to a higher temperature caused reduced growth rates, while steps to lower temperature caused increased growth rates. The reaction rate constant from the island growth model was calculated and shown to agree with literature data. The values obtained from temperature step measurements agreed within a factor of two with those obtained for reactions without temperature steps. Therefore, no systematic temperature effect upon the NiO nuclei density was observed for Ni(110). The activation energy for growth of NiO was found to be 5.5 kcal/mole. Dissolution of oxygen into bulk nickel was also studied and it was shown that bulk diffusion of oxygen in nickel was not rate controlling. Rather, surface phase transitions were observed which allowed incorporation of oxygen over the temperature range of 150°C to greater than 800°C, depending on the quantity of oxygen already incorporated.