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Science 20 September 2002:
Vol. 297. no. 5589, pp. 2033 - 2035
DOI: 10.1126/science.297.5589.2033
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Reports

Autocatalytic Oxidation of Lead Crystallite Surfaces

Konrad Thürmer,1 Ellen Williams,1 Janice Reutt-Robey2*

Growth of an ultrathin lead oxide layer causes massive changes in the shape of lead crystallites. The dynamics of this process was investigated with time-lapsed scanning tunneling microscopy. Pure lead crystallites proved extremely resistant to oxidation. Once nucleated by surface impurities, monolayer films of lead oxide grew readily on lead (111) microfacets in an autocatalytic process. The anisotropic growth of orthorhombic lead oxide films (massicot structure) was most rapid along the direction of weakest lead-oxygen bonding, which suggests that the growth edge autocatalyzes oxygen dissociation by providing proximal sites for oxygen dissociation and attachment.

1 Department of Physics,
2 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: rrobey{at}wam.umd.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Experimental observation of quantum oscillation of surface chemical reactivities.
X. Ma, P. Jiang, Y. Qi, J. Jia, Y. Yang, W. Duan, W.-X. Li, X. Bao, S. B. Zhang, and Q.-K. Xue (2007)
PNAS 104, 9204-9208
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