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reprint Fe2O3 Pt ESI

Electronic Supplementary Material (ESI) for Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. This journal is © the Owner Societies 2015 2 EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS Synthesis. Fe 2 O 3 deposits were fabricated by means of a custom-built PE-CVD apparatus equipped with a radio frequency (RF, ν = 13.56 MHz) generator. 1 The diameter of each electrode was 9 cm and the inter-electrode distance was fixed at 6 cm. Growth experiments were performed from Ar/O 2 plasmas for a total duration of 1 h, using a fixed RF-power of 10 W and a total pressure of 1.0 mbar. The iron precursor Fe(hfa) 2 TMEDA (hfa = 1,1,1,5,5,5-hexafluoro-2,4-pentanedionate; TMEDA = N,N,N',N'-tetramethylethylenediamine), synthesized according to a previously reported procedure, 2,3 was placed in an external vessel heated by an oil bath maintained at 65 °C and transported into the reaction chamber by means of electronic grade Ar (flow rate = 60 sccm). The temperature of precursor feeding lines was maintained at 140 °C in order to prevent detrimental condensation phenomena. Two further auxiliary gas-lines were used to introduce Ar (flow rate = 15 sccm) and electronic grade O 2 (flow rate = 20 sccm) directly into the reactor chamber. Basing on previous results, 4 Fe 2 O 3 growth was performed at 300 °C on FTO-coated glass slides (Aldrich, 735167-1EA, 7 Ω/sq; lateral dimensions = 2.0 cm  1.0 cm; FTO thickness 600 nm), mounted on the grounded electrode. Prior to deposition, the substrates were suitably cleaned by iterative dipping in acetone, sulphonic detergent, distilled water, and finally dried under an air flow.