The interaction of helium metastable atoms with a clean and co covered polycrystalline tungsten surface

An investigation has been made of secondary electron ejection resulting from the impact of helium metastable atoms on a clean and CO covered polycrystalline tungsten surface respectively. The ejected election energy distribution from the clean tungsten surface is found to differ from that resulting from the neutralization of slow incident ions. In the present case the distribution is narrow and peaked at approximately 2 eV. When the tungsten surface is exposed to CO it is found that the total yield of secondary electrons increases, but that the energy distribution remains essentially the same. The increase in the total yield following CO exposure is shown to be associated with bonding of the CO in the α-state. A tentative explanation for the de-excitation mechanism is proposed, based on Auger de-excitation of the helium metastable atom.     

Electron ejection mechanism in the He 23S interaction with a clean and a molecularly covered Ni(111) surface

The energy distributions of electrons ejected during the deexcitation of He 2³S on a clean Ni(111) surface and on CO- and NO-covered Ni(111) surfaces were measured. The experimental apparatus was carefully designed so that the beam incident on the target was well defined (both from the beam components and the beam geometry points of view) and so that the transmission coefficient encountered in the electron analysis could be taken into account correctly. The deexcitation on the clean surface is demonstrated to be of the (RI + AN) type. On the molecularly covered surface, the ejected electrons are due to (AD) type deexcitation. The He 2³S reflection coefficient is very low and only an upper limit of the order of 10^?4 could be established.     

Electron energy loss spectroscopy measurement of surface vibration dispersion on clean and oxygen-covered Ni(100)

Inelastic electron scattering has been carried out at 300 K on Ni(100) and at 150 K on p(2 × 2) and c(2 × 2) oxygen overlayers adsorbed on Ni(100). Impact energies ranged from 4 to 300 eV in order to measure the dispersion curves of surface vibrations throughout the two-dimensional Brillouin zone in the [110] direction. The Rayleigh mode has been observed in all cases. On O-coved surfaces a surface resonance and two vibrations of different polarizations associated with oxygen motion have been detected. The polarizations of the detected modes and the origin of the resonances, arising from the folding of the Brillouin zone due to the adsorbate, have been analysed with the help of symmetry considerations and the EELS selection rules. The O-coverage dependence of the Rayleigh mode frequency suggests a continuous outwards expansion of the first Ni plane starting from a contracted clean surface. The O-dispersion data are consistent with an O layer distant from the first Ni plane by ～ 0.9 Å in both investigated overlayers.     

Electron energy-loss spectra of clean and gas-covered Ni(100) surfaces

Electron energy-loss spectra have been measured on Ni(100) surfaces, clean and following oxygen and carbon monoxide adsorption, at primary energies of 40–300 eV. The observed peaks at 9.1, 14 and 19 eV in the clean-surface spectrum are ascribed to the bulk plasmon of the 4s electrons, the surface plasmon, and the bulk plasmon of the coupled 3d + 4s electron, respectively, and the weak but sharp peak at 33 eV is tentatively attributed to the localized many-body effect in the final state. Assignments of the loss structures on the gas-covered surfaces have been attempted.     

The bonding of chalcogen overlayers on Ni (100)

We present new evidence for the character of two forms of bonding by chalcogen adsorbates on Ni(100) for two different coverages, while the adsorbate site remains the same. Comparisons with data from solid state systems, rather than molecular analogs, are used and may be appropriate sources for models in such cases of strongly chemisorbed adatoms. By comparing recent photoemission data on solid chalcogens (S, Se, Te) with that of chalcogen overlayers on Ni(100), we are able, but for different reasons, to support the previous proposal that with the chalcogen atoms adsorbed in a four-fold site that (a) for the ordered c(2×2) one half-monolayer coverage, the chalcogen adatoms on Ni(100) are bonded to two Ni atoms and that (b) for an ordered one-fourth monolayer coverage, the chalcogen is bonded to four Ni atoms. Two chalcogen adsorbate-induced levels, one largely non-bonding and the other made up of bonding electrons, should be found in the valence region when the chalcogen is two-fold coordinated, as it is in the elemental solid. Several methods for testing these proposals have been suggested. The modification of adatom bonding as a function of coverage implies important adatom-adatom interactions which may be involved in the poisoning of Ni catalysts by chalcogen compounds.     

Adsorption of ethylenediamine on clean and oxygen covered Fe/Ni(100) surfaces studied by XPS

The interaction of ethylenediamine with Fe/Ni(100) surfaces oxidized to various extents has been studied in the temperature range 260–450 K by means of X-ray photoelectron Spectroscopy. The use of ~ 1 monolayer of Fe enables us to characterize the oxidation states of the topmost layer atoms unambiguously, based on the XPS spectra using a conventional spectrometer. On clean and c(2 × 2)-O surfaces the ethylenediamine can dissociate the N-H bond at 260 K. On heating the adlayer to 340 K the dissociation was further developed. On the surfaces whose Fe atoms were oxidized to FeO/Ni(100) and further, only molecularly adsorbed species were present at 260 K and desorbed partly without dissociation of the N-H bond after heating to 340 K.     

LEED intensities from clean and hydrogen covered Ni(100) and Pd(111) surfaces

Hydrogen adsorbs on Ni(100) and Pd(111) surfaces without the formation of additional diffraction spots in the LEED patterns. Measurements of LEED intensities revealed that adsorbed hydrogen layers cause considerable changes even in such cases where displacements of surface atoms (“reconstructive adsorption”) may be excluded. After hydrogen adsorption on Ni(100) the intensities of Bragg beams are uniformly lowered whereas the background intensity increases which is attributed to the formation of a disordered adsorbed layer. With Pd(111) adsorbed hydrogen causes a slight decrease of the background intensity and characteristic modifications of the intensity/voltage curve of the (0,0) beam, suggesting the formation of an ordered 1 × 1 structure. In the latter case energy shifts of the primary Bragg maxima were observed and are interpreted as being caused by an expansion of the layer spacing in the surface region by about 2% owing the partial dissolution of the hydrogen.     

Angular resolved Auger emission from clean and sulfur covered Ni(110) surface

The angular dependence of the nickel M₂₃VV and of the sulfur L₂₃VV Auger transitions are studied in detail, on clean and sulfur covered Ni(110) surfaces. New experimental data are presented for the anisotropy of both transitions as a function of polar and azimuthai angles of emission. Our model, which incorporates at the same time the multiple scattering effects in the final state wave function and the intrinsic anisotropy of the Auger emitter, is found to give a satisfactory account of the observed auger anisotropy. We find a large sensitivity to the position of the sulfur adsorbed atoms. The best agreement is obtained for the hollow site. slightly less than 0.9 Å above the top nickel layer. This conclusion is consistent with previous LEED and MEIS studies, but does not agree with the long bridge site obtained from quantum chemistry calculations. Moreover the sulfur emitter on this particular Ni(110) face appears to have an intrinsic anisotropy.     

CO adsorption on alkali-metal covered Ni(100)

The effect of preadsorbed alkali metal atoms Na, K and Cs on CO adsorption on Ni(100) has been studied using Auger spectroscopy and thermal desorption. It was found that the presence of alkali metals causes an appearance of several more tightly bound states in the CO thermal desorption spectra. The observed difference in carbon and oxygen Auger peak line shape on a bare and alkali modified Ni(100) is indicative that the presence of alkali adatoms induces CO decomposition on the Ni(100) surface. The fraction of dissociated CO increases with the amount of alkali adatoms present. At the same overlayer coverage the dissociation probability increases in the sequence Na, K, Cs. A comparison of the strength of the promoting effect on CO dissociation with the changes in the surface electron density in the presence of alkali adatoms has shown that at low overlayer coverages the electronic factor plays a major role in explaining the action of the surface modificators.     

Ion-beam crystallography of clean and sulfur covered Ni(110)

Medium energy ion scattering has been used to determine the atomic structure of a Ni(110) surface covered with 0.5 monolayer of sulfur. After having confirmed that the sulfur atom resides in a fourfold-coordinated hollow site, it was found that its distance above the plane of the first Ni layer is 0.87 ± 0.03 Å. We measured a 6 ± 3% outward relaxation effect for the sulfur covered Ni(110) surface layer and an inward relaxation of 4 ± 1% when this surface is clean.     

Adsorption of CO on clean and oxygen covered Ni(111) surfaces

Adsorption of CO on Ni(111) surfaces was studied by means of LEED, UPS and thermal desorption spectroscopy. On an initially clean surface adsorbed CO forms a √3 × $\text{√3}\text{R30°}$ structure at θ = 0.33 whose unit cell is continuously compressed with increasing coverage leading to a c4 × 2-structure at θ = 0.5. Beyond this coverage a more weakly bound phase characterized by a $\text{√7}\text{2}$ × $\text{√7}\text{2R19°}$ LEED pattern is formed which is interpreted with a hexagonal close-packed arrangement (θ = 0.57) where all CO molecules are either in “bridge” or in single-site positions with a mutual distance of 3.3 Å. If CO is adsorbed on a surface precovered by oxygen (exhibiting an O 2 × 2 structure) a partially disordered coadsorbate 2 × 2 structure with θ_o = θ_co = 0.25 is formed where the CO adsorption energy is lowered by about 4 kcal/mole due to repulsive interactions. In this case the photoemission spectrum exhibits not a simple superposition of the features arising from the single-component adsorbates (i.e. maxima at 5.5 eV below the Fermi level with O_ad, and at 7.8 (5σ + 1π) and 10.6 eV (4σ) with CO_ad, respectively), but the peak derived from the CO 4σ level is shifted by about 0.3 eV towards higher ionization energies.     

Young-type interference for scattering of fast helium atoms from an oxygen covered Mo(112) surface

In studies on two structures of oxygen adsorbates on Mo(112), we demonstrate the potential of fast atom diffraction to derive the surface unit cell size and its symmetry. Helium atoms with energies of 1-2 keV are scattered from an adsorbate covered Mo(112) surface along low indexed surface directions under grazing angles of incidence. From the observed diffraction patterns, the lateral periodicity of the surface structures is derived. In addition to the periodic lattice, information on the structure within the unit cell can be obtained from double slit type of interference.     

Trapping probabilities and desorption energies of alkali atoms on a clean and an oxygen covered tungsten (110) surface

Alkali atoms were scattered with hyperthermal energies from a clean and an oxygen covered (θ ≈ 0.5 ML) W(110) surface. The trapping probability of K and Na atoms on oxygen covered W(110) has been measured as a function of incoming energy (0–30 eV) and incident angle. A considerable enhancement of trapping on the oxygen covered surface compared to a clean surface was observed. At energies above 25 eV there are still K and Na atoms being trapped by the oxygen covered surface. From the temperature dependence of the mean residence time τ of the initially trapped atoms the pre-exponential factor τ₀ and the desorption energy Q were derived using the relation: $\text{τ = τ}{}_0\text{exp}\text{(}\text{Q}\text{kT}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>s</mtext>}}\text{)}$. On clean W(110) we obtained for Li: $\text{τ}{}_0\text{= (8 ±}\text{8}\text{4}\text{) × 10}{}^{\mathrm{?14}}\text{sec}$, Q = (2.78 ± 0.09) eV; for Na: τ₀ = (9 ± 3) × 10^?14 sec, Q = (2.55 ± 0.04) eV; and for K: τ₀ = (4 ± 1) × 10^?13 sec, Q = (2.05 ± 0.02) eV. Oxygen covered W(110) gave for Na: τ₀ = (7 ±3) × 10^?15 sec, Q = (2.88 ± 0.05) eV; and for K: $\text{τ}{}_0\text{= (1.3 ±}\text{0.9}\text{0.6}\text{) × 10}{}^{\mathrm{?14}}\text{sec}$, Q = (2.48 ±0.05) eV. The adsorption on clean W(110) has the features of a supermobile two-dimentional gas; on the oxygen covered W(110) adsorbed atoms have the partition function of a one-dimen-sional gas. The binding of the adatoms to the surface has a highly ionic character in the systems of the present experiment. An estimate is given for the screening length of the non-perfect conductor W(110):k_s^?1≈ 0.5 Å.     

Electron emission from surfaces of alkali halides under the impact of metastable helium and neon atoms

Energy distributions of the electrons ejected from the evaporated film surfaces of LiF, LiCl, LiBr, NaF and NaCl by the impact of metastable He and Ne atoms have been measured. The observed distribution curves have two distinct structures: one peak is identified as the valence band structure caused by Penning ionization, while the other peak is ascribed to scattered electrons. The positions of the valence band peaks are shifted to lower ionization energy from the corresponding photoelectron peaks (by 0.1–1.5 eV depending on the substance). In contrast to the photoelectron spectra, the structure attributable to conduction bands appears only very weakly. The relative intensity of the peak caused by scattered electrons is either strong or weak depending on the combination of the metastable atom and the sample. The interpretation of this observation is that the scattered electron peak is enhanced when the energy of the metastable atom exceeds twice the band gap energy, i.e. when the electron—electron scattering of Penning electrons in the solid is feasible.     

Structure of the clean Ta(100) surface

The clean Ta(100) surface and some aspects of hydrogen adsorption have been studied by LEED and AES. The thorough examination of LEED patterns did not provide any evidence for an atomic reconstruction of the clean surface over the entire temperature range investigated, 150–600 K. The r-factor analysis used for comparison between measured and calculated I–V spectra yields a contraction of the topmost layer spacing of about 11% and an expansion of the second layer spacing of about 1% compared to the bulk value. The hydrogen adsorption does not induce any superstructures, but small hydrogen exposures lass then 1 L influence I–V spectra substantially.     

Electron collisions with laser cooled and trapped metastable helium atoms: total scattering cross sections

Absolute measurements of total scattering cross sections for low energy (5-70 eV) electrons by metastable helium (2(3)S) atoms are presented. The measurements are performed using a magneto-optical trap which is loaded from a laser-cooled, bright beam of slow He(2(3)S) atoms. The data are compared with predictions from convergent close coupling and R matrix with pseudostate calculations, and we find good agreement between experiment and theory.