Surface Reactivity and Quantum-Size Effects on the Electronic Density Decay Length of Ultrathin Metal Films

摘要: The origin of the correlation between surface reactivity and quantum-size effects, observed in recent experiments on oxidation ultrathin magnesium films, is addressed by means ab initio calculations model predictions. We show that decay length vacuum electronic local density states at Fermi energy exhibits systematic oscillations with film thickness, maxima induced when a quantum-well state ${k}_{\ensuremath{\parallel}}=0$ crosses energy. predicted changes are expected to have major impact electron transfer rate tunneling, which has been proposed control initial sticking ${\mathrm{O}}_{2}$ process.