Initial-step study of metal-support interactions and thermal diffusion of Pt nanoparticles supported on cerium oxide after heat treatment using monodispersed and size-selected Pt10 clusters as the well-defined initial state

Pt10 clusters were selected as the initial size to study the thermal behavior of the sintering process. With the main focus on the sintering process, the thermal behavior of mass-selected Pt10 clusters supported on a ceria film has been studied. The mass-selected Pt10 clusters were deposited onto the CeO2(111) surface. Scanning tunneling microscope and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy provided the thermal behavior of atomically precise Pt10 clusters and the CeO2(111) surface. Understanding the detailed processes and pathways of sintering is extremely important for developing long-life catalysts. The analysis of a well-defined initial structure, such as monodispersed and unisized metal clusters on a single-crystal oxide surface, would be expected to give us useful insights for the important step to diffuse Pt atoms from monodispersed and unisized metal clusters to others and thermal kinetic parameters, which lead to the understanding of thermal behavior of active sites such as metal nanoparticles.