Adsorption of atomic and molecular oxygen on Cu(1Â 0Â 0)

We have studied the initial stages of the oxidation of the Cu(1 0 0) surface using ab initio calculations. Both atomic and molecular oxygen are addressed. We show that subsurface oxygen is not energetically favourable, but gets stabilized by on-surface O. We discuss the adsorption of molecular oxygen using elbow plots, which can be used in order to qualitatively understand the measured sticking coefficient at different oxygen coverages.