TY - JOUR A1 - Kirsch, Harald A1 - Wirth, Jonas A1 - Tong, Yujin A1 - Wolf, Martin A1 - Saalfrank, Peter A1 - Campen, Richard Kramer T1 - Experimental characterization of unimolecular water dissociative adsorption on alpha-alumina JF - The journal of physical chemistry : C, Nanomaterials and interfaces N2 - alpha-Al2O3 surfaces are common in both engineered applications and the environment. Much prior work indicates that their properties, e.g., reactivity, polarity, and charge, change dramatically on interaction with water. Perhaps the simplest question that can be asked of alpha-Al2O3/water interaction is how a single water molecule interacts with the most stable alpha-Al2O3 surface: the alpha-Al2O3(0001). Over the last 15 years, a series of theoretical studies have found that water dissociatively adsorbs on alpha-Al2O3(0001) through two channels. However, to our knowledge no experimental evidence of these dissociation pathways has appeared. By combining sample preparation via supersonic molecular beam dosing, sample characterization via coherent, surface specific vibrational spectroscopy and electronic structure theory, we report the first experimental observation of reaction products of each, theoretically predicted, dissociation channel. These results thus overcome a 15 year old experiment/theory disconnect and make possible a variety of intriguing experiments that promise to provide significant new insights into water/Al2O3 and water/oxide interaction more generally. Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1021/jp502106t SN - 1932-7447 VL - 118 IS - 25 SP - 13623 EP - 13630 PB - American Chemical Society CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Tong, Yujin A1 - Wirth, Jonas A1 - Kirsch, Harald A1 - Wolf, Martin A1 - Saalfrank, Peter A1 - Campen, Richard Kramer T1 - Optically probing Al-O and O-H vibrations to characterize water adsorption and surface reconstruction on alpha-alumina: An experimental and theoretical study JF - The journal of chemical physics : bridges a gap between journals of physics and journals of chemistr N2 - Oxide/water interfaces are ubiquitous in a wide variety of applications and the environment. Despite this ubiquity, and attendant decades of study, gaining molecular level insight into water/oxide interaction has proven challenging. In part, this challenge springs from a lack of tools to concurrently characterize changes in surface structure (i.e., water/oxide interaction from the perspective of the solid) and O-H population and local environment (i.e., water/oxide interaction from the water perspective). Here, we demonstrate the application of surface specific vibrational spectroscopy to the characterization of the interaction of the paradigmatic alpha-Al2O3(0001) surface and water. By probing both the interfacial Al-O (surface phonon) and O-H spectral response, we characterize this interaction from both perspectives. Through electronic structure calculation, we assign the interfacial Al-O response and rationalize its changes on surface dehydroxylation and reconstruction. Because our technique is all-optical and interface specific, it is equally applicable to oxide surfaces in vacuum, ambient atmospheres and at the solid/liquid interface. Application of this approach to additional alumina surfaces and other oxides thus seems likely to significantly expand our understanding of how water meets oxide surfaces and thus the wide variety of phenomena this interaction controls. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC. Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4906346 SN - 0021-9606 SN - 1089-7690 VL - 142 IS - 5 PB - American Institute of Physics CY - Melville ER -