Chemisorption of water and carbon dioxide on nanostructured BaTiO3-SrTiO3(001) surfaces

The interaction of water and carbon dioxide with nanostructured epitaxial (Ba,Sr)TiO3(001) thin film and bulk single crystal SrTiO3(001) surfaces was studied using x-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS), thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS), and density functional theory (DFT). On both surfaces, XPS and TDS indicate D2O and CO2 chemisorb at room temperature with broad thermal desorption peaks (423-723 K) and a peak desorption temperature near 573 K. A comparison of thermal desorption Redhead activation energies to adsorption energies calculated using DFT indicates that defect surface sites are important for the observed strong adsorbate-surface reactivity. Numerical calculations of the competetive adsorption/desorption equilibria for H2O and CO2 on SrTiO3(001) surfaces show that for typical atmospheric concentrations of 0.038% carbon dioxide and 0.247% water vapor the surfaces are covered to a large extent with both adsorbates. The high desorption temperature indicates that these adsorbates have the potential to impact measurements of the electronic structure of BaTiO3-SrTiO3(001) surfaces exposed to air, or prepared in high vacuum deposition systems, as well as the electrical properties of thin film ATiO(3)-based devices.