Modeling defect transport during Cu oxidation

Abstract A defect transport model describing Cu oxidation kinetics to Cu 2 O and CuO is presented. The model supports findings that the dominant defects in Cu 2 O are singly charged and neutral copper vacancies, and in CuO doubly charged copper vacancies. In this work, CuO is treated as a charge transfer insulator and from the model a reaction enthalpy for Cu vacancies in CuO was estimated to be 250 ± 10 kJ/mole. Using the model, defect-diffusion coefficients are extracted from copper oxidation experiments and activation energies for vacancy-diffusion in Cu 2 O and CuO were found to be 54 kJ/mole and 32 kJ/mole, respectively.