Graduation Semester and Year

2013

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Physics

Department

Physics

First Advisor

Nail Fazleev

Abstract

Copper based catalysts are of importance to a number of industrial processes including the synthesis of methanol, the reduction and decomposition of nitrogen oxides, and treatment of waste water. In copper catalysis surface oxidation and oxidic overlayers are believed to play a crucial role. In this work using density functional theory (DFT) within the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) we have studied the stability and associated electronic properties of the oxidized Cu(100) and Cu(110) surfaces. Especially, we have focused on studies of changes in the interlayer spacing, electron work function, binding energy, and density of states with oxygen coverage. We have examined the cases of various oxygen coverages of the non-reconstructed, missing row reconstructed Cu(100), and added row reconstructed Cu (110) surfaces. The first-principles calculations in this work have been performed using DMOl3 code. The obtained theoretical results have been compared with available experimental data.

Disciplines

Physical Sciences and Mathematics | Physics

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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