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S. Li, P. Jacobson, S. Zhao, X. Gong, U. Diebold:
"Trapping Nitric Oxide by Surface Hydroxyls on Rutile TiO#:{2}(110)";
Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 116 (2012), 1887 - 1891.

Hydroxyls are omnipresent on oxide surfaces under ambient conditions. While they unambiguously play an important role in many catalytic processes, it is not well-understood how these species influence surface chemistry at atomic scale. We in- vestigated the adsorption of nitric oxide (NO) on a hydroxylated rutile TiO2(110) surface with scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), X-ray/ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy (XPS/ UPS), and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. At room temperature adsorption of NO is only possible in the vicinity of a surface hydroxyl, and leads to a change of the local electronic structure. DFT calculations confirm that the surface hydroxyl-induced excess charge is transferred to the NO adsorbate, which results in an electrostatic stabilization of the adsorbate and, consequently, a significantly stronger bonding.