Energetics and CO-induced lifting of a (1×2) surface reconstruction observed on Pt{311}

Despite expectations from the literature, clean Pt{311} is shown to exhibit a (1×2) reconstruction, and CO adsorption leads to a lifting of this reconstruction to a (1×1) Pt structure. The reconstruction and its lifting are similar to those observed for CO on Pt{110}. A (1×1) island nucleation process occurs above a critical coverage of around 0.16 ML. Sticking probabilities and calorimetric adsorption heats are reported, and from the data the energy difference between Pt{311}-(1×1) and (1×2) is estimated to be in the order of ∼10 kJ mol−1.