Change of Work Function of Pd, Ag, K on Al(001) as a Functionof External Electric Field

We present a local density functional calculation of the effect of an external electric field on the work function change of Pd and Ag adsorption on an Al(001) surface. The adsorption of K has also been considered for comparison. We found that the work functions for all the systems increased linearly when the strength of external electric field was increased. Since the polarized electrons at the interstitial regions between the adsorbate and substrate for Pd/Al(001) and Ag/Al(001) react to the external electric field differently, the subtle differences between Pd/Al(001) and Ag/Al(001) bondings has been characterized through the comparison of slopes of the work function change versus electric field.