Mass change of nickel fresh surface at the beginning of oxidation

There are many cases when atmospheric corrosion produces serious problems-f or example, in electronic equipment. In this report, Au and Ni were vacuum- evaporated to produce a thin film on a quartz oscillator and the mass chang es of the fresh surfaces during introduction/evacuation of N-2 and artifici al air were measured by the QCM technique in order to investigate the initi al oxidation details of a fresh nickel surface near room temperature. The m onolayer adsorption could be achieved on a fresh Au surface when the N-2 pr essure reached 1.01 x 10(5) Pa, but the adsorbed layer was completely desor bed by evacuation of the gas. For the fresh Ni surface, the monolayer adsor ption, which was formed within 10 seconds of the N-2 introduction, did not disappear even if the N-2 was evacuated. The mass change of the fresh Au su rface during the introduction/evacuation of artificial air was substantiall y the same as that of N-2. However, the XPS analysis revealed that a nickel compound, NiO, was formed on the fresh Ni surface very early during the in troduction of artificial air. A contaminant, SO2, had a tendency to acceler ate the rate of mass gain during the gas introduction, while H2O only incre ased the mass of the initial adsorption layer.