title: Room-temperature electrochemical reduction of epitaxial magnetite films to epitaxial iron films.
abstract: The electrochemical reduction of oxides to metals has been studied for decades. Earlier work produced polycrystalline bulk metals. Here, we report that pre-electrodeposited epitaxial face-centered cubic magnetite thin films can be electrochemically reduced to epitaxial body-centered cubic iron thin films in aqueous solution on single-crystalline gold substrates at room temperature. This technique opens new possibilities to produce special epitaxial metal/metal oxide heterojunctions and a wide range of epitaxial metallic alloy films from the corresponding mixed metal oxides.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Graduate Center for Materials Research, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, Missouri 65409-1170, United States.
authors.forename: Zhen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: He
authors.forename: Rakesh V
authors.initials: RV
authors.lastname: Gudavarthy
authors.forename: Jakub A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Koza
authors.forename: Jay A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Switzer