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org Letter

Investigating Local Structure of Ion-Implanted (Ni2+) and Thermally

Annealed Rock Salt CoO Film by EXAFS Simulation Using
Evolutionary Algorithm
Latif U. Khan,* Naila Jabeen,* Isma Jabbar, Sadaf Jamil, Afia Kanwal, Zareen Akhter,
Muhammad Usman, Muhammad Z. Abid, and Messaoud Harfouche
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sı Supporting Information

ABSTRACT: The CoO film deposited on the surface of F-doped

SnO2 (FTO) conductive glass was prepared via drop casting
Downloaded via Latif Khan on February 17, 2021 at 09:34:42 (UTC).

technique. The effects of Ni2+-ion implantation at 700 keV energy

and postannealing in vacuum at 450 °C temperature on the local
structure of the CoO film was systematically explored. The XAFS
study revealed the substitution of octahedral Co2+ by Ni2+ ion
(Co1−xNixO) as a result of ion implantation. The existence of
defects in local structure around the octahedral Co for the
Co 1−x Ni x O film after thermal annealing in vacuum was
demonstrated by the theoretical EXAFS [χ(k)] simulation via
evolutionary algorithm implemented in reverse Monte Carlo
method in rationale with EXAFS fitting. Nevertheless, the cubic
rock salt structure for the Co1−xNixO was conserved, corroborated
through XRD patterns, suggesting a remarkable candidate for application as an electrocatalyst in fuel cells.
KEYWORDS: CoO film, Ni2+-ion implantation, thermal annealing, EXAFS simulation, evolutionary algorithm

■ INTRODUCTION
The rapidly growing global energy demand and shortage of
nonrenewable energy have attracted great attention toward
developing alternative environment friendly energy sources.
Fuel cells are considered the reassuring alternative to
nonsustainable energy fossil fuels1,2 that increasingly have
caused environmental pollution, greenhouse effect, and so on.
Exploring sustainable and environment friendly energy
sources3 are at a recent premium for tackling the global
energy challenges. The platinum (Pt)-based materials or its
alloys are the most efficient available catalysts for fuel cells with
the lowest overpotential.3,4 However, the high cost and low
stability of these materials have hindered their use for the large-
scale commercialization.4 Accordingly, developing efficient and
low-cost alternatives to the precious metal based electro-
catalysts is greatly important and a challenging task.
Recently, research interest in emerging nanosized transition
metal oxides as advanced energy materials5,6 has considerably
widened. Among them, cobalt oxide (especially CoO)7 based
electrocatalysts have exhibited high catalytic activity toward
oxygen reduction reaction (ORR).8 The easy availability and
higher stability of these metal oxides make them remarkable
alternates to the precious metal based electrocatalysts.
Cobaltous oxide is usually crystallized in two stable phases,9
cubic rock salt CoO of Fm3m space group with octahedrally
coordinated Co2+ and hexagonal wurtzite CoO of P63mc space
group with tetrahedral Co2+ ions.10 The high catalytic activity
of CoO11,12 may be attributed to its efficient O2 adsorption
behavior. Despite these appealing characteristics, CoO suffers
from higher overpotential when compared with the Pt metal13
due to lower electronic conductivity within the material.
Therefore, we aim to introduce defects and vacancies in the
CoO lattice through ion implantation and further thermal
annealing in controlled atmosphere, followed by adopting an
effective structural characterization approach. This could cause
the exposure of more active sites and lead to uplift the overall
electrical conductivity.4,14 Ion implantation is a considerably
cleaner and reliable material engineering method, usually
employed to modify the physicochemical, optical, and
electronic properties of semiconductor materials for enhanced
catalytic and photoelectrochemical applications.15 This allows
one to implant a selective element in a metal oxide matrix,
avoiding the involvement of extra elements, when compared to
Received: October 28, 2020
Accepted: February 11, 2021

© XXXX American Chemical Society https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsaem.0c02676

A ACS Appl. Energy Mater. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
ACS Applied Energy Materials
the conventional doping approaches. The introduction of
defects in an electrocatalyst lattice contributes toward the
enhancement of electronic conductivity and substantially
improves the O2 adsorption.12 This may lead to the
enhancement of catalytic activity and reduce the overpotential
of ORR for these materials.
X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) is a powerful
element-selective technique that is sensitive to the three-
dimensional structure around the photoabsorber and can
probe effectively the defects, vacancies,16−19 and disorders in
the local structure of metal oxides. Therefore, various
quantitative experimental EXAFS fitting and simulation-based
approaches, such as ab initio molecular dynamics20 and reverse
Monte Carlo (RMC)21 methods, have widely been applied for
the EXAFS analysis. Evolutionary algorithm implemented in
reverse Monte Carlo method (EvAX program) has been
recently developed by Timoshenko and co-workers22 that can
theoretically simulate the EXAFS [χ(k)] of inorganic materials
by constructing their 3D structure, consistent with the
respective experimental EXAFS data. In the present work
this approach in rationale with the EXAFS fitting via Artemis
from Demeter data analysis package23 was used to investigate
the consequential effects in local structure around the Co
photoabsorber in CoO film, after ion implantation (Ni2+) and
subsequent postannealing in vacuum.
The thin film of commercially purchased CoO was
deposited on the fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrate,
employing an efficient and facile drop casting method, as
reported earlier in the literature.24 Nickel ion was implanted
into CoO lattice at room temperature with a fixed fluence of 1
× 1015 cm−2, using Pelletron Tandem accelerator (see
Experimental Section in the Supporting Information). The
detailed EXAFS studies in corroboration with XRD patterns
and SEM images/EDS spectra were performed before and after
ion implantation to probe the effects of nickel-ion implantation
and post-thermal annealing in vacuum on the local electronic
structure of CoO lattice. The experimental Co K-edge XANES
spectra of the CoO and Ni2+-ion-implanted CoO films before
and after thermal annealing (450 °C) in vacuum show four
main features of weak pre-edge peak A, a sharp absorption rises
of peak B, and followed by the weak structure C and a broad
peak D at high energy from the first EXAFS oscillation (Figure
1). These spectra exhibited no significant change in the shape
and position of these features for the CoO and Co1−xNixO
Figure 1. Normalized XANES spectra (left) and their first derivatives
(right) for the CoO and Ni2+-ion-implanted CoO (Co1−xNixO) films
collected at the Co K-edge (7709 eV) before and after thermal
annealing in vacuum. The curves are vertically offset for clarity.
B https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsaem.0c02676
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films, suggesting no change in the oxidation state of Co2+, after
implantation with Ni2+ ion at 700 keV energy and annealing at
450 °C temperature in vacuum. However, after thermal
annealing, the decrease in the amplitude of the white line
peak (B) shows a local structural effect around the photo-
absorber Co2+ ion.
The literature reported studies16,17 have revealed that a low
atomic number (Z) element such as oxygen displays stronger
scattering in the XANES energy region. Therefore, controlled
atmosphere, thermal annealing induced oxygen vacancies (VO)
in the Co2+-doped metal oxides,18 such as ZnO:Co, have
shown considerable effects in the near-edge structure of the
Co(II) K-edge spectrum.19 On the basis of these reported
studies, it is assumed that the observed change, for instance a
decrease in amplitude10 and wideness in the white line peak B
(Figure 1), might be related to the O vacancies near octahedral
Co2+ in the Co1−xNixO lattice after thermal annealing in
vacuum. Additionally, the multiple scattering (MS)25 con-
tributions from the second and third coordination shell
neighboring atoms usually sharpen peaks C and D,
respectively. However, a negligible change in feature C (Figure
1) was detected after thermal annealing for the Co1−xNixO,
because both Co and Ni atoms have close atomic numbers in
octahedral coordination and display about similar photo-
electron scattering amplitude function in this energy region.
The appearance of very weak pre-edge peak (A) at ∼7708
eV for the Co(II) K-edge spectra of the CoO and Co1−xNixO
films (Figure 1) is related to the 1s → 3d quadrupole transition
of Co2+ in the octahedral coordination (Oh).26 The quadrupole
transitions are usually demonstrated intrinsic transition
strength of about 0.1% of the dipole transitions. However,
owing to the high density of states in the 3d band, these
transitions appear as small peaks with ∼1−3% intensity for
mostly octahedral transition metal oxides.27 The dipole
transitions of a 1s electron to the p−d hybridized states are
forbidden in centrosymmetric octahedral coordination (Oh).26
If the inversion symmetry is broken, for example in tetrahedral
coordination compounds, the 3d and 4p states of metal ion
intermix and the dipole transitions are allowed to the p−d
hybridized states, accordingly contributing to and increasing
the intensity of the pre-edge peaks.27 Thus, existence of a
similar lower intensity pre-edge peak around 7708 eV (Figure
1, inset) for the CoO and Ni2+-ion-implanted CoO film post-
thermal annealing in vacuum manifested the octahedral local
coordination environment for the Co2+ in cubic lattice.
The experimental k2-weighted EXAFS oscillations [k2χ(k)]
and their Fourier transforms at the Co K-edge of CoO and
Ni2+-ion-implanted CoO films before and after annealing in
vacuum (450 °C) are shown in Figure 2. The reference CoO
and Ni2+-ion-implanted CoO (Co1−xNixO) films exhibit similar
EXAFS oscillations’ shape, which is very close to that of the
rock salt cubic lattice of CoO. The Fourier transformed
EXAFS of these materials show two main peaks at ∼2 and ∼3
Å that are also consistent with the rock salt cubic structure of
cobalt(II) oxide (Figure 2). The first peak (∼2 Å) corresponds
to the group of six oxygen atoms, located in the first
coordination shell and characteristic of the CoO, whereas
the second higher amplitude peak (∼3 Å) is attributed to the
second coordination shell, representing the group of 12 cobalt
atoms in the cubic CoO lattice.
The shape of the first peak does not show any considerable
change with the Ni2+-ion implantation. However, the most
important effect is the successive decrease in the amplitude of
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prominent peak featured near 2.98 Å arises from the Co−Co

Figure 2. Experimental k2-weighted EXAFS signals (left) and their
respective Fourier transforms with best fits (right) at the Co K-edge
of the CoO and nickel-ion-implanted CoO (Co1−xNixO) films before
and after thermal annealing in vacuum at 450 °C, showing both the
amplitude and the imaginary parts of the Fourier transforms of the
data and the fits.
the second peak (∼3 Å) for the CoO films after ion
implantation and subsequent post-thermal annealing (Figure
2). The origin of the second peak is due to the single scattering
contribution from Co in the second shell within the Co−O−
Co atomic lattice. The observed decrease in the amplitude of
this peak suggests the substitution of Co2+ occupying the
octahedral site by Ni 2+ ions (Co 1−x Ni x O) after ion
implantation at 700 keV energy, which becomes more
pronounced after annealing in vacuum at 450 °C temperature.
Nevertheless, the experimental EXAFS data demonstrated a
rock salt cubic structure for the CoO and nickel-ion-implanted
CoO films before and after thermal annealing in vacuum,
validated through XRD patterns (See Supporting Information
Figure S1).
In order to explore further, the best fits of experimental data
(Figure 2) were performed for the CoO and Co1−xNixO films
before and after thermal annealing. This fit yielded shells for
the reference CoO film, associated with the octahedral
coordination of Co in rock salt cubic cobalt(II) oxide with
Fm3̅m (225) space group.28 Thus, the peak observed near 2 Å
in R-space is associated with backscattering from the oxygen
atoms to which Co is directly bonded, whereas the most
second shell single scattering path. The fit parameters (Table 1
and Supporting Information Table S1) for all the reference
CoO film and the Ni2+-ion-implanted one (Co1−xNixO) before
and after annealing in vacuum at 450 °C temperature display
nearly identical values of Co−O bond length, confirming a
similar local environment around metal ions, occupying an
octahedral site for all of these materials.
However, relatively smaller Debye−Waller factor (σ2) or
values of mean square relative displacements (MSRDs) (Table
1 and Supporting Information Table S1) of Co−O and Co−
Co atomic pairs were observed for the Co1−xNixO film, when
compared to the reference CoO. This suggests that Ni2+
doping via ion implantation, as manifested by the SEM/EDS
spectra (see Supporting Information Figure S2) leads to a
decrease in the CoO octahedral distortion or structural
disorder. However, after annealing (450 °C) in vacuum, the
increase in the MSRD σ2 value (0.0040 Å2) of the second
coordination shell demonstrates thermal disorder in the Co−
Ni/Co atomic pair and may be attributed to the defects18 near
octahedral Co at the substitution site for the Co1−xNixO film.
Additionally, the decrease in the amplitude of Co−Ni
backscattering peak in Co1−xNixO film before and after
thermal annealing can be also explained by a decrease in
distribution or the number of octahedral Co2+ in the second
shell, due to effective substitution by Ni2+ ion, as a result of ion
implantation. In order to explore oxygen vacancy in
Co1−xNixO post-thermal annealing, the first peak related to
the backscattering from the oxygen atoms was fitted with
variable coordination number (CN), setting the atomic
distance (R), amplitude reduction factor (S02) and photo-
electron energy (E0) values fixed for the first scattering path
and refined relative to the Debye−Waller factor (σ2). Thus, by
lowering the CN to 5.2, an elevation in σ2 value (0.00366 ±
0.0012) was observed, with a consequential best fit outcome.
This result might be related to the presence of oxygen vacancy
in the Co1−xNixO lattice post-thermal annealing in vacuum.
EXAFS Simulation for CoO and Ni2+-Ion-Implanted
CoO Films. The common methods of fitting the experimental
EXAFS data, using the Demeter data analysis package,23 such
as Artemis program, usually give the best fit analysis to the
nearer coordination shells around the photoabsorber atom in

Table 1. Derived EXAFS Fitting and Simulation Values of the Mean Coordination Shell Radii (R (Å)) and Mean Square
Relative Displacements (MSRDs, σ2 (Å2)) for the CoO and Ni2+-Ion-Implanted CoO (Co1−xNixO) Films, before and after
Annealing (450 °C) in Vacuuma
exptl EXAFS fit EXAFS simulation
material coordination shell N R (Å) MSRD σ (Å )
2 2
R (Å) MSRD σ2 (Å2)
CoO Co0−O1 6 2.074 ± 0.057 0.0060 2.149 ± 0.018 0.0036
Co0−Co1 12 2.984 ± 0.029 0.0069 3.030 ± 0.016 0.0030
Co0−O2 8 3.702 ± 0.010 0.0047
Co0−Co2 6 4.273 ± 0.011 0.0035
Co1−xNixO Co0−O1 6 2.096 ± 0.034 0.0031 2.144 ± 0.013 0.0020
Co0−Ni1 12 3.005 ± 0.009 0.0033 3.025 ± 0.011 0.0021
Co0−O2 8 3.699 ± 0.007 0.0029
Co0−Ni2/Co2 6 4.270 ± 0.008 0.0023
Co1−xNixO (450 °C) Co0−O1 6 2.083 ± 0.048 0.0022 2.148 ± 0.017 0.0034
Co0−Ni1 12 3.020 ± 0.006 0.0040 3.030 ± 0.016 0.0052
Co0−O2 8 3.702 ± 0.010 0.0049
Co0−Ni2/Co2 6 4.274 ± 0.012 0.0057

a
N = coordination number; R = radius.

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the crystalline structure. Therefore, a quite recently developed
efficient EvAX (Evolutionary Algorithms for XAS analysis)
program,23 implementing the evolutionary algorithm (EA) in
reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) scheme was used for the full
quantitative analysis of EXAFS [χ(k)] at the Co K absorption
edge of the ion-implanted (Ni2+) CoO films before and after
annealing (450 °C) in vacuum (Figure 3). This approach
Figure 3. Experimental and theoretical k2-weighted EXAFS signals
(left) and their Fourier transforms (right) calculated by EvAX
program at the Co K-edge of the CoO and Ni2+-ion-implanted CoO
(Co1−xNixO) films before and after thermal annealing (450 °C) in
vacuum.
allowed us to reconstruct the 3D atomic structure models and
to get efficient information on the local structures and
dynamics of materials, equivalent to the widely used RMC
method. The EvAX simulation approach significantly reduces
the number of required iterations, when compared to the
conventional RMC. Therefore, it improves the convergence
properties of the simulations and makes feasible the analysis of
EXAFS spectra at a relatively long radial distances (R) for
complex materials.
Contrary to the conventional RMC approach, the EvAX
program simulated all of the respective atomic configurations
in parallel. Additionally, a new set of atomic configurations is
generated at each iteration by copying atomic configurations
from the old set that gives the best agreement with
experimental configurations in the new set (selection process),
interchanging some atoms of randomly selected configuration
with atoms of another configuration (crossover process) and
displacing some atoms in random directions (mutation
process). Finally, those atomic configurations are selected
whose averaged theoretical EXAFS is in good agreement with
the experimental one, using the concept of Metropolis−
Hasting algorithm, as described earlier22 in the literature.
Herein, the first and second coordination shells around the
Co atom were already analyzed by the best fit to data, using
Artemis program from the Demeter data analysis package
(Table 1).23 However, to analyze further, the long distance
backscatterers, EvAX simulation of EXAFS was employed. This
approach allowed us to acquire information on the structural

Figure 4. Continuous Cauchy wavelet transform analyses of CoO and Ni2+-ion-irradiated CoO (Co1−xNixO) films. (Top row and bottom left
panels) EXAFS signals [χ(k)], showing the localization of O, Co/Ni backscatterers’ contributions in different yellowish green and red color maps.
(Bottom right panel) 3D structural model of the Ni2+-ion-implanted CoO film.

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ACS Applied Energy Materials
defects in long distance coordination shells in CoO crystal
lattice, as a result of Ni2+-ion implantation and postannealing
(450 °C) in vacuum. In first and second coordination shells,
six oxygen atoms and 12 metal atoms located at the distances
of 2.1 (Co0−O1) and 3.0 Å (Co0−Co1), respectively, around
the Co, occupying the octahedral symmetry site in the CoO
lattice, whereas the third and fourth coordination shells
contain eight oxygen and six metal atoms at distances of 3.7
(Co0−O2) and 4.2 Å (Co0−Co2), respectively, contributing to
the EXAFS spectrum of CoO film, as shown in Figure 4.
Similar to the fit result of the Artemis program, the RMC/
EA (EvAX program) EXAFS simulation (Figure 3) also
exhibited decrease in MSRD σ2 values (Table 1) for the
Co1−xNixO film after ion implantation, suggesting more
ordered octahedral local structure than that of CoO. However,
after annealing at 450 °C in vacuum, the increase in MSRD σ2
values of the second to fourth coordination shells (Table 1) for
the Co1−xNixO film exhibited thermal disorder in these shells.
The radial distribution function g(R) around the Co atom,
reconstructed for the final atomic configurations of the CoO
and Co1−xNixO films, reproduced accurately the interatomic
distances of the four coordination shells (see Supporting
Information Figure S3), during experimental EXAFS data
simulations via EvAX (Table 1). However, relative broadening
of the RDF peaks, largely the second and fourth coordination
shells for Co1−xNixO, post-thermal annealing in vacuum
remarkably reflected the existence of thermal disorder in
these atomic pairs. This result might be related to the defective
local structure around the Co2+ ion18 for the Co1−xNixO, post-
thermal annealing. Nevertheless, RMC/EA enabled us to
perform accurate simulation of the EXAFS data with precise
interatomic distances distribution (Table 1), taking into
account contributions from the distant coordination shells
and multiple scattering effects, when compared to the
conventional EXAFS fitting approach.
The experimental and theoretically calculated (via EvAX
program, using FEFF 8-lite) EXAFS [χ(k)] were qualitatively
analyzed through continuous Cauchy wavelet transform
(CCWT), applying already developed code by Muñoz and
co-workers,29 in MATLAB 2019b. It is noteworthy that the
CCWT modulus of both the experimental and theoretical k2-
weighted EXAFS signals manifested similar features and
number of colored maps associated with atomic backscatterers
(Figure 4), confirming the successful simulation of EXAFS via
EvAX program. This method remarkably visualized the various
shells of neighboring atoms surrounding the central atom in
two- and three-dimensional CCWT images, by decomposing
EXAFS signals in k-space and R-space, simultaneously for the
CoO and Co1−xNixO films, before and after annealing (450
°C). These images showed three distinct structured maps of
different intensity colors and corresponded to the O (2.1 and
4.76 Å) and Co/Ni (3.0 Å), contributions of the atomic
groups’ backscatterers for all of the materials.
The reported literature studies have revealed that the
alterations in amplitude of the normalized EXAFS spectrum
are usually affected by the backscattering amplitude functions
(|f j(k,π)|) of the neighboring atoms,30 which are ultimately
related to the number of repulsive electrons in their electronic
clouds, as shown in the following standard equation:
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Nj 2 2
χ(k) ≈ ∑ Si(k) |f (k , π )| e−2R j / λj(k) e−2σj k
2 j
j kR j
(
× sin 2kR j + ∑ Φij(k))
where Si is the passive electrons’ amplitude reduction factor, Nj
is the number of backscattering neighbor atoms j in each shell,
Rj is the average distance between the central photoabsorber
and the backscattering atoms, |f j(k,π)| is the backscattering
amplitude function, σ2j is the correlated Debye−Waller factor,
measuring the mean square relative displacement (MSRD)
between photoabsorber and backscatterer, λj is the photo-
electron mean free path, and ∑Φij(k) is the sum of the phase-
shift functions including the backscattering phase shifts of the
central and neighboring atoms, and related thermal vibrations.
Therefore, high atomic number atoms are more efficient
backscatterers at high k values, contrary to the atoms with
lower atomic numbers, which are highly efficient backscatterers
at lower k values.29 Thus, following this concept, the O (2.1 Å)
atomic groups in the first coordination shell, associated with
the metal-O octahedron, appeared as a yellowish green color
map in CCWT modulus images at lower k values, whereas the
next-nearest-neighbor metal atoms (Co/Ni) located at 3.0 Å
(second shell) were visualized at higher k values, as a deep red
color map, as shown in the Figure 4. Finally, the color map
located at ∼4.3 Å represents a higher-order shell, originating
from the single backscattering of metal atomic groups from
other octahedra. These data were validated with the position
and interatomic distances of atomic groups in various
coordination shells of rock salt CoO lattice obtained through
ab initio FEFF calculations of EXAFS based on X-ray
crystallography structure parameters.
■ CONCLUSIONS
In summary the local structure of the Ni2+-ion-implanted rock
salt CoO film was explored through X-ray absorption fine
structure (XAFS) analysis before and after thermal annealing
(450 °C) in vacuum. The XANES spectra revealed existence of
oxygen vacancy probably near the octahedral Co2+ substituted
by Ni2+ ion for the Co1−xNixO film, generated as a result of
thermal annealing in vacuum. The theoretical EXAFS
simulation via Evolutionary algorithm in rationale with
EXAFS fitting via Artemis led us to postulate that the
experimental EXAFS of Co1−xNix O film, post-thermal
annealing can be explained by the presence of defects in
local structure around the octahedral Co. Nevertheless, this
result suggests that the Co1−xNixO film deposited on FTO
substrate presents a remarkable candidature as an electro-
catalyst for fuel cells, which is the main objective of the study
to explore in the future.
■
*
ASSOCIATED CONTENT
sı Supporting Information
The Supporting Information is available free of charge at
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsaem.0c02676.
Detailed experimental section, XRD patterns, SEM
images/EDS spectra, radial distribution function g(R),
and Table S1 (PDF)
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ACS Applied Energy Materials
■
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Authors
Latif U. Khan − Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science
and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME), Allan
19252, Jordan; orcid.org/0000-0002-3535-7099;
Email: latifullah.khan@sesame.org.jo
Naila Jabeen − Nanosciences and Technology Division,
National Centre for Physics, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan;
Email: naila.jabeen@ncp.deu.pk
Authors
Isma Jabbar − Department of Chemistry, Quaid-i-Azam
University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan
Sadaf Jamil − Department of Chemistry, Quaid-i-Azam
University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan
Afia Kanwal − Department of Chemistry, Quaid-i-Azam
University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan
Zareen Akhter − Department of Chemistry, Quaid-i-Azam
University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan
Muhammad Usman − Experimental Physics Department,
National Centre for Physics, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan
Muhammad Z. Abid − U.S.−Pakistan Center for Advanced
Studies in Energy, National University of Sciences and
Technology (NUST), Islamabad 44000, Pakistan
Messaoud Harfouche − Synchrotron-Light for Experimental
Science and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME),
Allan 19252, Jordan
Complete contact information is available at:
https://pubs.acs.org/10.1021/acsaem.0c02676
Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
■
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We acknowledge the financial support by Synchrotron-Light
for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East
(SESAME), Jordan and National Centre for Physics (NCP),
Islamabad, Pakistan. We also extend gratitude to the XAFS/
XRF beamline, SESAME, for the XAFS spectra measurements
(Proposal No. 20185131).
■
ABBREVIATIONS
CCWT, continuous Cauchy wavelet transform.
EDS, Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy
FTO, fluorine-doped tin oxide
MSRDs, mean square relative displacements
XAFS, X-ray absorption fine structure
■
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