Dissociation of Oxygen on a Polycrystalline Ag Surface: A Second-Harmonic Generation Study

An optical second-harmonic generation study on the dissociation of oxygen on a polycrystalline Ag surface is reported in this paper. The adsorption of oxygen at room temperature exhibits two kinds of adsorption states: diatomic and atomic states. The existence of atomic state oxygen hinders the further dissociation of diatomic oxygen.