Excitation mechanisms and photochemistry of adsorbates with spherical symmetry

By comparing the photo-stimulated desorption of Xe from an oxidized Si(100) surface with the photochemistry of methane on metal surfaces, we try to deduce a common concept in the excited state and the excitation mechanism responsible for the photo-induced processes. Xe atoms are desorbed from the oxidized Si(100) surface by the irradiation of photons in the range 1.16-6.43 eV. Two velocity components with average kinetic energy 0.85 and 0.25 eV are observed in the time-of-flight distributions. The fast component appears only if the photon energy exceeds approximately 3 eV, but the slow component is present over the entire photon energy range. By analogy with the photochemistry of methane on metal surfaces, the excitation mechanism responsible for the fast component is postulated to be a transition from the 5p state of Xe to the excited state originating from strong hybridization between the 6s state of Xe and the dangling bond at a surface silicon atom bonded to oxygen inserted in the dimer bond. In this scheme an excited electron is transferred from the adsorbate to the substrate, which is the reverse direction to the substrate-mediated excitation frequently assumed in surface photochemistry.