UCID-20622-97 ii
C&MS PROGRESS REPORT-FY97iii
C&MS PROGRESS REPORT-FY97
Contents
Experimental ProcedureTo investigate the initial hydriding using STM with nanometer-scale resolution, it is essential to start with a high purity, atomically flat uranium substrate. This cannot be achieved by polishing since a uranium surface oxidizes extremely rapidly in a laboratory atmosphere and consequently electron tunneling cannot be established under the STM tip. This difficulty has been overcome using laser ablation of a uranium target and consequent deposition of the ablated uranium onto highly oriented pyrolytic graphite in an ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) system with a base pressure of 6 × 10 -9 Pa. HOPG with an atomically flat surface acts as an ideal substrate. Platinum was deposited by evaporation with the sample, then annealed to create clusters of different sizes.The core of this experiment was measurement using the high spatial resolution of an STM. 3 The STM contained a cylindrical Piezo crystal which facilitated x, y, and z motion of the tip with the range of motion 1.4 mm in x and y and 0.4 mm in z. Constant-current-mode images were used with the bias voltage usually set to 500 mV (sample positive), and the tunneling current was set at 0.6 nA.
ResultsFigures 1(a) and (b) show the results of 5 and 20 min exposures to di-hydrogen on samples with platinum clusters. It appears that the clusters expand as the result of hydrogen exposure, which is apparently due to the reaction of hydrogen
AbstractThe surface-reaction of di-hydrogen with uranium in the presence of platinum clusters has been studied using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), where uranium is deposited on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) and annealed at temperatures up to 1200°C to obtain atomically flat surfaces. Platinum clusters are then formed using evaporation from a platinum source onto the surface and subsequent annealing. Hydrogen mainly attacks uranium in the vicinity of platinum clusters and forms hydride. As a result, we have determined the hydride formation probability for the most probable cluster size, which is almost constant at 2.3 × 10 -4 over the range of exposures studied.