Interaction of atomic hydrogen with the graphite single-crystal surface

The reaction of atomic hydrogen (or atomic deuterium) with highly orientated pyrolytic graphite surfaces has been studied by means of thermal desorption spectroscopy. In some cases atomic deuterium instead of atomic hydrogen, was used solely to assign the desorbed masses unambiguously to the different hydrocarbons. The desorption of D₂ and fourteen hydrocarbons was observed. D₂ desorbed at higher temperatures than the CH-(CD) compounds, the desorption spectra of the hydrocarbons contained two peaks. The dependence of the desorption spectra of several hydrocarbons on the heating rate, the atomic hydrogen exposure and the composition of the desorption products was investigated in detail. The kinetic parameters of the desorption process were determined for CH, C₂H₂, and CD₄. The spectra showed that there must be a first order desorption process for all the hydrocarbons, the values for the activation energy and the frequency factor were the same within experimental errors. The results were discussed by means of a simple model.     

Manipulation of Cu adatoms on anisotropic Cu surfaces using scanning tunneling microscopy

The physical origin of tip-induced motion of Cu adatoms on anisotropic Cu surfaces is investigated by means of total energy calculations which are based on three different semi-empirical potentials. The calculations show that for certain tip–adatom distances the activation barrier for the adatom to move towards the tip disappears completely, whereas the barrier in the opposite direction increases and the adatom experiences an attractive force towards the tip. The general trends do not depend on the shape and chemical nature of the tip, but quantitatively there appear differences.     

Application of inclusive probability theory to heavy ion-atom collisions

Using the independent particle model as our basis we present a scheme to reduce the complexity and computational effort to calculate inclusive probabilities in many-electron collision system. As an example we present an application toK?K charge transfer in collisions of 2.6 MeV Ne⁹⁺ on Ne. We are able to give impact parameter-dependent probabilities for many-particle states which could lead toKLL-Auger electrons after collision and we compare with experimental values.     

Calculation of inner shell excitation in the collision system Ni--Pb

Using an R-dependent atomic basis for static molecular calculations we get accurate single particle energies and dynamic coupling matrix elements. We present our ab initio calculations of inner shell vacancy production for the scattering systems Ni¹¹⁺-Pb at 1.5 MeV/N and Pb⁴²⁺-Ni at 1.4 MeV/N. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Interaction of atomic hydrogen with the graphite single-crystal surface

We have studied the chemisorption of atomic hydrogen on the basal plane of natural graphite single crystals. LEED and angle-resolved photoemission were used to characterize the clean surface. The adsorption of H saturates at rather low exposures, accompanied by a decrease of the work function by =(100±20) meV. The photoemission spectra indicate a clear carbon-hydrogen interaction, leading to shifts of substrate bands by up to about 200 meV. No detectable etching of the surface occurs at room temperature, in agreement with earlier work. Our results are qualitatively consistent with theoretical considerations about a strong H(1s)-C(2p _z) chemical bond.