Nonequilibrium desorption of atoms and molecules from surfaces

A model, based on concepts from the theory of atom-surface accommodation coefficients, for nonequilibrium desorption of atoms and molecules from surfaces is proposed. We contend that the nonequilibrium effects should be expected to be general properties of not only polyatomic molecule-surface systems, but of all desorbing systems. The model predicts large deviations from the equilibrium dependences, on desorption angle, of (a) the desorbing atomic flux, (b) the average energy of desorbing atoms and (c) the desorbing atomic speed ratio. The deviations are larger when the accommodation coefficient is smaller.