Electron stimulated desorption of CO molecules from chemisorbed CO layers on Ru(001): a comparison of the distributions of translational and internal energies

The translational and internal energies of CO desorbed by electron impact from well-ordered × layers on Ru(001) are investigated with time-of-flight techniques and resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI) spectroscopy. We discriminate four desorption channels with different translational and internal energy distributions. Translational and vibrational energies are positively, crrelated; rotational and vibrational–translational energies are negatively correlated. The microscopic origins of these correlations are discussed.