Adsorption of single alkali atoms on tungsten using field emission and field desorption

Single adatom events have been detected and the binding energies and dipole moments of single sodium, potassium and cesium adatoms have been measured on the (110), (112) and (111) planes of tungsten in a probe hole field emission microscope. The Fowler-Nordheim formulation has been modified to include averaging effects implicit in probe hole measurements on single adsorbed atoms. The work function changes and consequent dipole moments associated with single alkali adatoms on a tungsten surface have been estimated. A model has been proposed to obtain binding energies from measurements of the field required to desorb a single alkali adatom. The results are in good agreement with current theoretical predictions for the adsorption of single alkali atoms on metals.