S Sambasivan

Chemistry of NO2 on CeO2 and MgO: Experimental and theoretical studies on the formation of NO3

In environmental catalysis the destruction or removal of nitrogen oxides (DeNOx process) is receiving a lot of attention. Synchrotron-based x-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy, high-resolution photoemission, and first-principles density-functional calculations (DFT-GGA) were used to study the interaction of nitrogen dioxide with CeO2 and MgO. The only product of the reaction of NO2 with pure CeO2 at 300 K is adsorbed nitrate. The NO3 is a thermally stable species which mostly decomposes at temperatures between 450 and 600 K. For the adsorption of NO2 on partially reduced ceria (CeO2−x), there is full decomposition of the adsorbate and a mixture of N, NO, and NO3 coexists on the surface of the oxide at room temperature. Ce3+ cations can assist in the transformation of NO and NO2 in DeNOx operations. Adsorbed NO3 (main product) and NO2 are detected after exposing MgO to NO2 gas. A partial NO2,ads→NO3,ads transformation is observed on MgO(100) from 150 to 300 K. DFT-GGA calculations show strong bonding i...

Probing surface and bulk chemistry in resist films using near edge x-ray absorption fine structure

The performance of chemically amplified photoresists is extremely sensitive to interfacial and surface phenomena, which cause deviations in the pattern profile near an interface. Striking examples include T-topping or closure near the air/resist interface and footing or undercutting near the resist/substrate interface. One focus of our research is to identify mechanisms that cause lithographic patterns to deviate near interfaces. Near edge x-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) is a powerful tool that can be developed and adapted to probe for detailed chemical information near lithographically relevant interfaces. NEXAFS showed that our model resist films exhibited significant surface segregation of the photo acid generator (PAG) at the air interface. The PAG surface mole fraction was 20–70 times greater than the bulk mole fraction and the amount of surface segregation was dependent on the polarity of the polymer. NEXAFS also revealed that the PAG surface fraction was reduced after a postexposure bake. ...