Hydrogen chemisorption on Pd(100) studied with he scattering

He scattering from the clean Pd(100) surface yields extremely weak diffraction beams relative to the specular, corresponding to a very small maximum corrugation amplitude of ~ 0.04 Å. Hydrogen adsorption at a temperature of 110 K leads to the formation of a c(2 × 2) ordered phase at a coverage of 0.5 monolayers and a (1 × 1) phase at saturation coverage. The maximum corrugation amplitude of the c(2 × 2)H is ~0.13 Å; surface charge density calculations using overlapping atomic charge densities indicate a normal distance of the hydrogens to the topmost Pd layer d_n ? 0.65–0.70 Å corresponding to a H-Pd bonding distance of ~ 2.05 Å in the fourfold hollow sites. The result that the maximum corrugation amplitude of the (1 × 1) hydrogen phase, with ~ 0.025 Å, even smaller than that of the clean surface may indicate a movement of the hydrogens closer to the topmost metal layer, when the coverage is increased from 0.5 monolayers to saturation.