Development of a single crystal sample holder for interfacing ultrahigh vacuum and electrochemical experimentation.

Electrocatalyst surfaces prepared under ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) conditions can create model surfaces to better connect theoretical calculations with experimental studies. The development of a single crystal sample holder and inert electrochemical cells prepared with modularity and chemical stability in mind would allow for expensive single crystals to be reused indefinitely in both UHV and electrochemical settings. This sample holder shows reproducible surface preparations for single crystal samples and consistent electrochemical experiments without the introduction of impurities into the surface. The presented setup has been used as a critical piece for the characterization of Cu(111) surfaces under CO ₂ electrochemical reduction reaction conditions as a test case.