Cabrera–Mott kinetics of oxidation of nm-sized metal particles

The conventional Cabrera–Mott model for describing the kinetics of growth of thin oxide films on metal crystals is based on the assumption that the process is limited by the field-facilitated activated jumps of metal ions on the flat metal-oxide interface. We modify this model in order to apply it to nm-sized metal particles. Our analysis indicates that due to the difference in the distribution of the electric field the kinetics of oxidation of nm-sized particles may be much faster compared to those of macroscopic samples.