Competition between electron and phonon excitations in the scattering of nitrogen atoms and molecules off tungsten and silver surfaces

Details Competition between electron and phonon excitations in the scattering of nitrogen atoms and molecules off tungsten and silver surfaces Competition between electron and phonon excitations in the scattering of nitrogen atoms and molecules off tungsten and silver surfaces

2012-03-13

arxiv.org/abs/1203.2896v1

PRL 108, 096101 (2012)

Physics

Condensed Matter

Materials Science

4pages and 3 figures

Scientific paper

10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.096101

We investigate the role played by electron-hole pair and phonon excitations in the interaction of reactive gas molecules and atoms with metal surfaces. We present a theoretical framework that allows us to evaluate within a full-dimensional dynamics the combined contribution of both excitation mechanisms while the gas particle-surface interaction is described by an ab-initio potential energy surface. The model is applied to study energy dissipation in the scattering of N$_2$ on W(110) and N on Ag(111). Our results show that phonon excitation is the dominant energy loss channel whereas electron-hole pair excitations represent a minor contribution. We substantiate that, even when the energy dissipated is quantitatively significant, important aspects of the scattering dynamics are well captured by the adiabatic approximation.

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