Molecular vibration dynamics in molecule-surface interactions

A quantum mechanical coupled channels approach to associative or recombinative desorption and scattering of diatomic molecules is described. The formulation is based on the concept of a reaction path and allows prediction of the vibrational excitation of desorbing molecules. We first consider very light molecules such as H₂ and D₂ desorbing via a Langmuir-Hinshelwood reaction. In a simple model neglecting rotations and substrate vibrations, the dependence of molecular vibrational excitation on incident energy, the curvature of the reaction path and the position and height of the saddle point are discussed. Various experimental results can be described with reasonable parameters. Vibrational excitation in Eley-Rideal reactions and rotational excitations in general are discussed only in a semiquantitative way. For heavier molecules the coupling to substrate vibrations in principle will become more important. Arguments will be presented that for the problem of vibrational excitation in desorption and scattering this coupling may still be neglected approximately. Results for vibrational excitations of CuF desorbing from Cu are in support of this simple point of view.