Chemical state

About: Chemical state is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2378 publications have been published within this topic receiving 78183 citations.

Heat treatment of molybdenum under vacuum conditions

Abstract: Oxide coverage of molybdenum plays an important role in several applications, for example in lighting industry. Surface conditioning procedures were simulated in an XPS instrument by in situ heat treatments while monitoring the surface composition and changes in the chemical states of molybdenum. Heat treatments have been made at different temperatures between 435 and 690 °C under vacuum conditions. It has been observed that during heating the molybdenum test samples the native MoO3 layer on the surface dissociates, and a layer of suboxides forms on the surface. This layer hinders the further reduction of the surface, thus reaction speed decreases after the initial phase. It has been established that in the second phase of the heat treatment the activation energy of the process is 1.1 ± 0.2 eV. Reduction of MoO3 to elemental molybdenum runs through two intermediate states: Mo6+ → Mo5+ → Mo4+ → Mo0.

Engineering the oxygen coordination in digital superlattices

Abstract: The oxygen sublattice in complex oxides is typically composed of corner-shared polyhedra, with transition metals at their centers. The electronic and chemical properties of the oxide depend on the type and geometric arrangement of these polyhedra, which can be controlled through epitaxial synthesis. Here, we use oxide molecular beam epitaxy to create SrCoOx:SrTiO3 superlattices with tunable oxygen coordination environments and sublattice geometries. Using synchrotron X-ray scattering in combination with soft X-ray spectroscopy, we find that the chemical state of Co can be varied with the polyhedral arrangement, with higher Co oxidation states increasing the valence band maximum. This work demonstrates a new strategy for engineering unique electronic structures in the transition metal oxides using short-period superlattices.

X-ray excited Auger transitions of Pu compounds

Abstract: X-ray excited Pu core–valence–valence and core–core–valence Auger line-shapes were used in combination with the Pu 4f photoelectron peaks to characterize differences in the oxidation state and local electronic structure for Pu compounds. The evolution of the Pu 4f core-level chemical shift as a function of sputtering depth profiling and hydrogen exposure at ambient temperature was quantified. The combination of the core–valence–valence Auger peak energies with the associated chemical shift of the Pu 4f photoelectron line defines the Auger parameter and results in a reliable method for definitively determining oxidation states independent of binding energy calibration. Results show that PuO2, Pu2O3, PuH2.7, and Pu have definitive Auger line-shapes. These data were used to produce a chemical state (Wagner) plot for select plutonium oxides. This Wagner plot allowed us to distinguish between the trivalent hydride and the trivalent oxide, which cannot be differentiated by the Pu 4f binding energy alone.