This award provides funds to support a 24-month research visit by Dr. Miles J. Weida, postdoctoral fellow, Indiana University, for collaboration with Dr. Hrvoje Petek, Senior Research Scientist, Hitachi Advanced Research Laboratory, Hatoyama, Saitama, Japan. These collaborators will perform a detailed study of the reaction kinetics and mechanisms for the reduction of a copper oxide surface by hydrogen atoms. Copper can be viewed as a good model for more complicated transition metals. This suggests that the oxygen-hydrogen reaction on copper, as a model system, should provide new insight into heterogeneous catalysis on transition metals.
Although the study of catalytically useful transition metals stems in part from their practical importance, the study of hydrogen and oxygen on copper surfaces has several advantages which make it a system of fundamental interest. One advantage is the fact that the adsorbate structures of both oxygen and hydrogen on copper have been extensively characterized. Given the level of understanding of the adsorption of oxygen and hydrogen on copper surfaces, it seems natural to extend these studies to the interaction of these species on copper surfaces. This research may shed light on such topics of current interest as self organization of adsorbates on surfaces and adsorbate-induced metal atom transport in heterogeneous catalysis. This project is supported under the Science Fellowship Program between the National Science Foundation and the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership. ***
