Investigations of the stability of palladium clusters supported on gold

The stability of gold supported palladium clusters, generated with an electrochemical scanning tunnelling microscope, has been investigated in metal-free electrolyte. The clusters are found to be more stable, if the tip is moved further towards the electrode surface during the generation process. Only a weak dependence of the potential on the dissolution is observed, but a strong increase of the dissolution current density with decreasing particle size. Dissolution of the clusters occurs from the edges rather than layer by layer.