Surface chemistries of oxygen and water on titanium-iron bimetallic systems

The dissociative chemisorption of oxygen and water on Fe, Ti, and adlayers of each metal on the other have been explored via surface electron spectroscopies. Auger Electron Spectroscopy (AES) and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) have been used to monitor the reactions of titanium and iron with low exposures (from one to several hundred langmuirs) of oxygen and/or water vapor. Comparisons and contrasts are drawn between bulk metals and adlayer alloys--alloys formed by vapor depositing a few angstroms of one metal on top of a relatively thick film of the other metal. Most notable is the ability of a very thin layer of titanium to lessen the reactivity of a thick iron film toward oxygen