First-principles study on the reconstruction induced by the adsorption of C60 on Pt(111)

The adsorption of C60 on a Pt(111) surface and the origins of the root 13 x root 13R13.9 degrees or 2 root 3 x 2 root 3R30 degrees reconstruction of the C60/Pt(111) system have been investigated by means of first-principles calculations. In agreement with the experimental observations, our calculations reveal that the C60 molecule binds covalently on the Pt(111) surface. The C60 molecule adsorbs on the Pt(111) surface with the center of a hexagonal ring located on top of a surface Pt atom. The surface Pt atom can be removed easily, forming a Pt vacancy upon the adsorption of C60 molecule. Our calculation results show that the strong covalent bonds between C60 and the Pt(111) surface and the formation of adatom-vacancy pairs in the C60/Pt(111) system may be the main driving forces promoting the substrate reconstructing pattern observed in experiments.