Nanoscale Studies of the Early Stages of Oxidation of a TiAl-Base Alloy

The strategy to perform nanoscale studies of the initial stages of oxidation of TiAl involved first gaining some information on the electronic structure of pure TiO2 surfaces and then on TiAl surfaces before and after oxidation both in low- and high-oxygen potentials. Both materials were studied in atomically-cleaned states generated by repeated sputtering and heating. It was found that the oxygen vacancies created additional defect states in the band gap of stoichiometric TiO2. The results obtained on TiO2 were used as fingerprints to study the oxide nucleation. The results on the initial stages of oxidation of TiAl confirm the nucleation of Ti2O3 islands of nanometer size and monolayer height in a low-oxygen-pressure environment, whilst a TiO2 layer developed in an atmospheric environment. The ledges on atomically-cleaned surfaces usually acted as nucleation sites.