We report our investigation of the interaction of NO2 with the Au(997)vicinal surface by high-resolution photoelectron spectroscopy using synchrotron radiation as the excitation source.At 170 K,both core-level and valence-band photoemission results illustrate the decomposition of NO2 on the Au(997)surface at low NO2 exposures,forming coadsorbed NO(a)and O(a)species.After annealing at 300 K,NO(a)desorbs from Au(997)whereas O(a)remains on the surface.Upon annealing at 750 K,we observe no signal for adsorbed oxygen on Au(997).These results clearly demonstrate that thermal decomposition of NO2 is an effective method to generate oxygen adatoms on Au(997)under ultrahigh-vacuum conditions.
