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State-selective dissociation of a single water molecule on an ultrathin MgO film

Nature Materials volume 9, pages 442–447 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

The interaction of water with oxide surfaces has drawn considerable interest, owing to its application to problems in diverse scientific fields. Atomic-scale insights into water molecules on the oxide surface have long been recognized as essential for a fundamental understanding of the molecular processes occurring there. Here, we report the dissociation of a single water molecule on an ultrathin MgO film using low-temperature scanning tunnelling microscopy. Two types of dissociation pathway—vibrational excitation and electronic excitation—are selectively achieved by means of injecting tunnelling electrons at the single-molecule level, resulting in different dissociated products according to the reaction paths. Our results reveal the advantage of using a MgO film, rather than bulk MgO, as a substrate in chemical reactions.

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Figure 1: Single water molecules on MgO/Ag(100).
Figure 2: Vibrationally induced lateral hopping of a water molecule.
Figure 3: Vibrationally induced dissociation of water molecules.
Figure 4: Dissociation of water by electronic excitation to the LUMO level.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas, ‘Electron transport through a linked molecule in nano-scale’, from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), in part by the Global COE Program (Chemistry Innovation through Cooperation of Science and Engineering), MEXT, Japan, and also in part by the International Program Associate (IPA) program of RIKEN. We are grateful for the computational resources of the RIKEN Integrated Cluster of Clusters (RICC) supercomputer system.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Surface Chemistry Laboratory, RIKEN, Wako, Saitama 351-0198, Japan

    Hyung-Joon Shin, Jaehoon Jung, Kenta Motobayashi, Yousoo Kim & Maki Kawai

  2. Department of Applied Chemistry, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan

    Hyung-Joon Shin & Maki Kawai

  3. Department of Advanced Materials Science, The University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8561, Japan

    Jaehoon Jung, Kenta Motobayashi & Maki Kawai

  4. Department of Precision Science and Technology, Osaka University, 2-1 Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan

    Susumu Yanagisawa & Yoshitada Morikawa

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  1. Hyung-Joon Shin
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Contributions

H-J.S. designed and carried out the experiments. J.J. carried out the DFT calculations. K.M. analysed the action spectra. H-J.S. wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yousoo Kim or Maki Kawai.

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Shin, HJ., Jung, J., Motobayashi, K. et al. State-selective dissociation of a single water molecule on an ultrathin MgO film. Nature Mater 9, 442–447 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2740

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