Controlling Carboxyl Deprotonation on Cu(001) by Surface Sn Alloying

We find that for adsorbed terephthalic acid (TPA) molecules surface Sn alloying deactivates the Cu(001) surface by decoupling the adsorbed molecules from the substrate. This effect is investigated for the case of the 0.5 ML phase of the Sn/Cu(001) surface alloy by applying fast X-ray photoemission spectroscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy, near-edge Xray absorption fine structure spectroscopy, and density functional theory calculations. The experimental results conclusively show that the deprotonation reaction of the carboxyl groups occurring in the clean Cu(001) is fully inhibited on this Sn/Cu(001) surface alloy, which allows the molecules to form two-dimensional arrays stabilized by [OH···O] hydrogen bonds. The formed arrays exhibit a crystal structure that is practically indistinguishable from that theoretically obtained for unsupported TPA sheets, suggesting an extremely weak molecule/substrate interaction. This is supported by DFT calculations of the adsorption energy landscape of the TPA sheets formed on the Sn/Cu(001) template: the lateral variation of the adsorption energy (corrugation) is estimated to be less than 0.2 eV, with an adsorption energy per molecule in the range 1.6−1.8 eV and a contribution of each double [OH···O] bond of 1 eV. Finally, the performed thermal desorption experiments show that the TPA sheets remain stable on the surface alloy until their desorption. From these experiments, a value of 1.5 eV was determined for the desorption energy barrier, which is consistent with the important contribution of the [OH···O] bonds to the stability of the sheets as theoretically predicted. The results reported in this study suggest that a gradual activation of the interaction between the TPA molecules and the Cu(001) surface will also be obtained for decreasing Sn coverage.Fil: Carrera, Alvaro Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Area de Investigación y Aplicaciones No Nucleares. Gerencia de Física (Centro Atómico Bariloche); ArgentinaFil: Cristina, Lucila Josefina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Area de Investigación y Aplicaciones No Nucleares. Gerencia de Física (Centro Atómico Bariloche); ArgentinaFil: Bengió, Silvina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Area de Investigación y Aplicaciones No Nucleares. Gerencia de Física (Centro Atómico Bariloche); ArgentinaFil: Cossaro, A. . Italian National Research Council. Istituto Officina dei Materiali; ItaliaFil: Verdini, A. . Italian National Research Council. Istituto Officina dei Materiali; ItaliaFil: Floreano, L.. Italian National Research Council. Istituto Officina dei Materiali; ItaliaFil: Fuhr, Javier Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Area de Investigación y Aplicaciones No Nucleares. Gerencia de Física (Centro Atómico Bariloche); ArgentinaFil: Gayone, Julio Esteban. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Area de Investigación y Aplicaciones No Nucleares. Gerencia de Física (Centro Atómico Bariloche); ArgentinaFil: Ascolani, Hugo del Lujan. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Area de Investigación y Aplicaciones No Nucleares. Gerencia de Física (Centro Atómico Bariloche); Argentin

Ubiquitous deprotonation of terephthalic acid in the self-assembled phases on Cu(100)

We performed an exhaustive study of terephthalic acid (TPA) self-assembly on a Cu(100) surface, where first-layer molecules display two sequential phase transitions in the 200-400 K temperature range, corresponding to different stages of molecular deprotonation. We followed the chemical and structural changes by means of high-resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and variable-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), which were interpreted on the basis of density functional theory (DFT) calculations and photoemission simulations. In order to reveal the spectroscopic contributions of the molecules in different states of deprotonation, we modified the substrate reactivity by deposition of a small amount of Sn, which hampers the deprotonation reaction. We found that the characteristic molecular ribbons of the TPA/Cu(100) α-phase at a low temperature contain a significant fraction of partially deprotonated molecules, in contrast to the expectation of a fully protonated phase, where the self-assembly was claimed to be simply driven by the intermolecular double hydrogen bonds [OH⋯O]. On the basis of our simulations, we propose a model where the carboxylate groups of the partially deprotonated molecules form single hydrogen bonds with the carboxylic groups of the fully protonated molecules. Using real time XPS, we also monitored the kinetics of the deprotonation reaction. We show that the network of mixed single and double hydrogen bonds inhibits further deprotonation up to ∼270 K, whereas the isolated molecules display a much lower deprotonation barrier.Fil: Quiroga Argañaraz, Maria Bernarda. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Cristina, Lucila Josefina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Física del Sur. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Física. Instituto de Física del Sur; ArgentinaFil: Parra Rodríguez, Laura María. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Cossaro, A.. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche; ItaliaFil: Verdini, A.. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche; ItaliaFil: Floreano, L.. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche; ItaliaFil: Fuhr, Javier Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Gayone, Julio Esteban. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Ascolani, Hugo del Lujan. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; Argentin

Performance of the CMS Cathode Strip Chambers with Cosmic Rays

The Cathode Strip Chambers (CSCs) constitute the primary muon tracking device in the CMS endcaps. Their performance has been evaluated using data taken during a cosmic ray run in fall 2008. Measured noise levels are low, with the number of noisy channels well below 1%. Coordinate resolution was measured for all types of chambers, and fall in the range 47 microns to 243 microns. The efficiencies for local charged track triggers, for hit and for segments reconstruction were measured, and are above 99%. The timing resolution per layer is approximately 5 ns

Search for supersymmetry in events with b-quark jets and missing transverse energy in pp collisions at 7 TeV

Results are presented from a search for physics beyond the standard model based on events with large missing transverse energy, at least three jets, and at least one, two, or three b-quark jets. The study is performed using a sample of proton-proton collision data collected at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC in 2011. The integrated luminosity of the sample is 4.98 inverse femtobarns. The observed number of events is found to be consistent with the standard model expectation, which is evaluated using control samples in the data. The results are used to constrain cross sections for the production of supersymmetric particles decaying to b-quark-enriched final states in the context of simplified model spectra.Comment: Submitted to Physical Review

Performance and Operation of the CMS Electromagnetic Calorimeter

The operation and general performance of the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter using cosmic-ray muons are described. These muons were recorded after the closure of the CMS detector in late 2008. The calorimeter is made of lead tungstate crystals and the overall status of the 75848 channels corresponding to the barrel and endcap detectors is reported. The stability of crucial operational parameters, such as high voltage, temperature and electronic noise, is summarised and the performance of the light monitoring system is presented