Nano Scale “Angel Dog” walking on Titania Surface

"Titania has wide range of applications including catalysis, solar cells, gas sensor, and ceramics. Because heterogeneous catalysts consist of metal clusters supported on a metal oxide support, this work is based on growing metal particles supported on a single crystal TiO2(110) surface in an effort to understand support effects in catalysis. The advantage of such models is that they can be investigated by means of powerful spectroscopic tools as they employ planar substrates. This surface science approach provides access to the atomic level studies. As presented here, we successfully took a high-quality image of a clean TiO2(110) surfaces with Scanning Tunneling Microscope which shows large terraces with the characteristic row pattern that arises from alternating lines of bridging oxygen(dark rows) and uncapped titanium ions(bright rows). We also can see hydrogen atoms as bright spots on top of dark rows which is a result of water dissociation on an oxygen defect site. This image gave us the visual understanding of a preferential nucleation site on titania surface, and also based on this image we investigate the effect of hydroxyl group in deligation process while assembeling nanoclusters on top of TiO2 surface."