Combinatorial study of role of interfacial energy on exsolution nanoparticle growth

Exsolution is a redox process that enables direct growth of anchored metal nanoparticles on metal oxide supports that show great promise for applications in catalytic and electrochemical energy conversion and storage technologies. The proposed experiment will utilize continuous compositional spread thin films with chemical gradients that adjust the structural and chemical properties of exsolution system, as well as different surface terminations. High-throughput screening by total scattering and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) will be applied to address unresolved questions of the role of strain in the host oxide and lattice mismatch to the exsolved metal nanoparticles, as well as the nucleation sites.