Copper oxide thin films were synthesized by reactive radio frequency magnetron sputtering at different oxygen gas ratios. The chemical and physical properties of the thin films were investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). XPS results revealed that the dominant oxidation states of Cu were Cu 0 and Cu + at 0% oxygen ratio. When the oxygen ratios increased above 5%, Cu was oxidized as CuO as detected by X-ray induced Auger electron spectroscopy and the Cu(OH) 2 phase was confirmed independent of the oxygen ratio. The valence band maxima were 1.19 ± 0.09 eV and an increase in the density of states was confirmed after formation of CuO. The thickness and roughness of copper oxide thin films decreased with increasing oxygen ratio. The crystallinity of the copper oxide films changed from cubic Cu through cubic Cu 2 O to monoclinic CuO with mean crystallite sizes of 8.8 nm (Cu) and 16.9 nm (CuO) at the 10% oxygen ratio level.

We report the results of the surface chemistry of deuterized ethanol exposed Zircaloy-4 (Zry-4) surfaces with various amount of C2D5OD exposures at 190 K. This system was examined with Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) and temperature programmed desorption (TPD) techniques. In TPD study, D2 was evolved at two different desorption temperature regions accompanying with broad desorption background. The lower temperature feature at around 520 K showed first-order desorption kinetics. The high temperature desorption peak at around 650 K shifted to lower desorption temperature as the exposure of C2D5OD increased. The Zr(MNV) Auger peak shifted about 2.5 eV from 147 eV to lower electron energy followed by 300 L of C2D5OD dosing. This implies metallic zirconium was oxidized by deuterized ethanol adsorption. After stepwise annealing of the oxidized Zry-4 sample up to 843 K, the shifted Zr(MNV) peak was gradually shifted back to metallic zirconium peak position. After the sample was heated to 843 K, the oxygen content near the Zry-4 surface was recovered to clean surface level. The concentration of carbon, however, was not recovered by annealing the sample.