Effect of Surface Impurities on Oscillation in NO+CO/Pt(100) Reaction System

A lattice gas model was proposed to explore the effect of inert surface impurities on the oscillation in the NO+CO reaction system on Pt(100). It was found that when the fraction of the impurities is small, the (1*1) phase resulting from the surface restructuring can form a connected phase and the system exhibits a global sustained oscillation. With the fraction of the impurities increasing, the (1*1) phase only can form many isolated patches and the spatial coherence between the local oscillators with a random phase relationship lost, and as a result, the sustained oscillation changes into a damped one. When the diffusion rate of adsorbed CO and NO increases, the synchronization between local oscillators is enhanced and the global sustained oscillation can appear again.