Electron Work Functions of (H K L)-Surfaces of W, Re, and Cu Crystals

Abstract

Abstract Work function (WF) and some physicochemical data for several most prominent crystal planes of three metals of typical structures are calculated within the linear approximation employing the surface dipole and 2D gas models. “Composite” crystal of a homogeneous bulk phase and a thick surface composed of eight (h k l)-oriented facets with different unsaturated bonds is treated as a nine-phase nine-component system with two degrees of freedom. It contains the two-dimensional metal-lattice plasma of free electrons and the immobile atom-core network. For twenty four (h k l) surfaces, the WF and dipole barrier term, chemical and electrostatic potential levels, electron charge densities, surface dipole fields, and other parameters are calculated and tabularized. WF values obtained from the thermodynamics based formula are compared to the ones obtained from the quantum mechanics based formula, which shows good agreement with experiment and also reveals a specific deviation in the case of field emission method for the most packed plane. A set of accurate face dependent data can be of interest to electronics and materials science workers