Understanding the structures of catalysts under realistic conditions with atomic precision is crucial to design
better materials for challenging transformations. Under reducing conditions, certain reducible supports migrate onto supported
metallic particles and create strong metal−support states that drastically change the reactivity of the systems. The details of this
process are still unclear and preclude its thorough exploitation. Here, we report an atomic description of a palladium/titania (Pd/
TiO2) system by combining state-of-the-art in situ transmission electron microscopy and density functional theory (DFT)
calculations with structurally defined materials, in which we visualize the formation of the overlayers at the atomic scale under
atmospheric pressure and high temperature. We show that an amorphous reduced titania layer is formed at low temperatures,
and that crystallization of the layer into either mono- or bilayer structures is dictated by the reaction environment and predicted
by theory. Furthermore, it occurs in combination with a dramatic reshaping of the metallic surface facets.