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Changes in electron capture rates during the oxidation of metal surfaces are investigated on the example of F− formation in fluorine ion/atom scattering on a Mg surface exposed to O2 and also for MgO(100). In the low-coverage, chemisorption range, F− formation decreases in spite of a decrease in the surface work function. This is assigned to a local effect due to specifics of the electronic structure at the adsorbate site, which is akin to surface poisoning effects. At high exposures corresponding to oxide formation electron capture is very efficient and can be understood in terms of a quasi-resonant localised charge exchange mechanism between a F atom and a MgO lattice O anion.

The growth of SiO x nanowires (NWs) with intense white emission is reported. Due to carbon monoxide gas being used as a dopant precursor, carbon-doped under-stoichiometric silicon dioxide NWs are obtained. The doping of the NWs is studied by means of x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, which allows to assess the presence of carbon atoms in the silicon oxide amorphous structure. The light emission properties are studied by means of cathodoluminescence spectroscopy, which shows three main emission bands set at 2.7 eV (blue), 2.3 eV (green) and 1.9 eV (red), resulting in the white emission.

We report the influence of the native amorphous SiO(2) shell on the cathodoluminescence emission of 3C-SiC/SiO(2) core/shell nanowires. A shell-induced enhancement of the SiC near-band-edge emission is observed and studied as a function of the silicon dioxide thickness. Since the diameter of the investigated SiC cores rules out any direct bandgap optical transitions due to confinement effects, this enhancement is ascribed to a carrier diffusion from the shell to the core, promoted by the alignment of the SiO(2) and SiC bands in a type I quantum well. An accurate correlation between the optical emission and structural and SiO(2)-SiC interface properties is also reported.