Microscopic evidence for the dissociation of water molecules on cleaved GaN(1100)

The dissociation of water molecules absorbed on a cleaved non-polar GaN(1100) surface was studied primarily with synchrotron-based photoemission spectra and density-functional-theory calculations. The adsorbed water molecules are spontaneously dissociated into hydrogen atoms and hydroxyl groups at either 300 or 130 K, which implies a negligible activation energy (<11 meV) for the dissociation. The produced H and OH were bound to the surface nitrogen and gallium on GaN(1100) respectively. These results highlight the promising applications of the non-polar GaN(1100) surface in water dissociation and hydrogen generation.