By studying the growth of Cu2O islands during the initial oxidation stage of Cu(001) with in situ transmission electron microscopy, it is found that the dominant mechanism for the growth of three-dimensional islands is surface diffusion of oxygen. However, there exists a non-negligible contribution to the metal oxide growth by another mechanism, probably direct impingement of the oxygen atoms on the oxide island. These results demonstrate the importance of surface conditions in oxidation.
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Yang et al. (1997) studied this question.
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