Tuning Electronic Properties of Novel Metal Oxide Nanocrystals Using Interface Interactions

Download or read book Tuning Electronic Properties of Novel Metal Oxide Nanocrystals Using Interface Interactions written by and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Metal oxide nanocrystals deposited on metal surfaces have novel electronic properties due to interface and nanoscale effects. Crystals and nanoscale ribbons of MoO3 are highly effective catalysts and field emitters. This renders MoO3 an interesting prototype. Whilst MoO3 exists as bilayers in the bulk crystal5, in this work, monolayer MoO3 nanocrystals were grown epitaxially on Au(111). Ab initio calculations reveal that Au stabilizes the MoO3 monolayer through electronic charge redistribution at the interface. The Mo-O bonds are able to rotate about one another, allowing the MoO3 monolayer to adjust to the Au lattice. As a result, the monolayer is semimetallic, unlike bulk MoO3 which is semiconducting. This remarkable flexibility of the oxide lattice suggests the possibility of tuning electronic properties of transition metal oxides via interface interactions. The overall surface pattern obtained is affected by an interplay between the Au(111) surface reconstruction and the edges of the deposited MoO3 islands.