Formation and characterization of Au/Pd surface alloys on Pd(111)

The formation of alloys by adsorbing gold on a Pd(111) single crystal substrate and subsequently annealing to various temperatures is studied in an ultrahigh vacuum by means of Auger and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The nature of the alloy surface is probed by CO chemisorption using temperature-programmed desorption and reflection-absorption infrared spectroscopy. It is found that gold grows in a layer-by-layer fashion on Pd(111) at 300 K, and starts to diffuse into the bulk after annealing to above 600 K. Alloy formation results in a 0.5 eV binding energy decrease of the Au 4f XPS signals and a binding energy increase of the Pd 3d features of 0.8 eV, consistent with results obtained for the bulk alloy. The experimentally measured CO desorption activation energies and vibrational frequencies do not correlate well with the surface sites expected from the bulk alloy composition but are more consistent with significant preferential segregation of gold to the alloy surface. 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.