Platinum nanoprisms : Imaging and interaction with CO studied by HP-STM

The Catalysts with high activity and selectivity are widely used, and platinum is one of the most metal used in heterogeneous catalysis. During the reaction, the catalysts undergo changes of their structure and of their chemical composition prior their steady state activity. As often stated, the reactants forms their own catalyst. Those changes occurs at real working pressure and temperature and are not majority of the industrial production is based on the application of a catalytic process. always easily accessible to UHV-based techniques. The high-pressure STM allows to study those changes under more realistic conditions (up to 1000 Torr of well-controlled gaseous environment). Studies on stepped Pt crystal surface highlights the breaking of the steps into 2 nm clusters [1]. The study of more realistic catalysts consists in Pt-based nanoparticles. The e-beam physical vapor deposition (eBPVD) is an efficient way to synthesize regular Pt-patterns (nanoprisms) with good reproducibility