TY - JOUR
T1 - Phonon sudden theory of Debye-Waller attenuation. Temperature dependence of rotational energy transfer in molecule/surface scattering
AU - Schinke, R.
AU - Gerber, R. B.
PY - 1985
Y1 - 1985
N2 - A model for the description of thermal attenuation in atom, molecule/surface scattering is presented. It is based on the energy sudden approximation for all degrees of freedom, i.e., phonons, diffraction, and rotation, and leads to a generalized Debye-Waller factor that depends on the rotational transition and is valid for arbitrary interaction potentials. The traditional Debye-Waller factor is recovered for a hard potential. Assuming a Debye frequency spectrum for the phonons we present two model calculations for molecule/surface scattering. In the first case we assume a pairwise interaction between the atoms of the molecule and the surface atoms and observe a temperature dependence of the rotational transition probabilities, which is due to both the rotational energy transfer and the rotational dependence of the Debye-Waller factor. In the second case we model NO/Ag(111) scattering and conclude that a variation of the surface temperature has only a slight influence on the final rotational state distribution which is in accordance with the experimental findings of Auerbach et al. The mean rotational energy transfer shows a slight linear increase with the temperature as recently observed by Kubiak et al.
AB - A model for the description of thermal attenuation in atom, molecule/surface scattering is presented. It is based on the energy sudden approximation for all degrees of freedom, i.e., phonons, diffraction, and rotation, and leads to a generalized Debye-Waller factor that depends on the rotational transition and is valid for arbitrary interaction potentials. The traditional Debye-Waller factor is recovered for a hard potential. Assuming a Debye frequency spectrum for the phonons we present two model calculations for molecule/surface scattering. In the first case we assume a pairwise interaction between the atoms of the molecule and the surface atoms and observe a temperature dependence of the rotational transition probabilities, which is due to both the rotational energy transfer and the rotational dependence of the Debye-Waller factor. In the second case we model NO/Ag(111) scattering and conclude that a variation of the surface temperature has only a slight influence on the final rotational state distribution which is in accordance with the experimental findings of Auerbach et al. The mean rotational energy transfer shows a slight linear increase with the temperature as recently observed by Kubiak et al.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=36549093985&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1063/1.448432
DO - 10.1063/1.448432
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AN - SCOPUS:36549093985
SN - 0021-9606
VL - 82
SP - 1567
EP - 1576
JO - The Journal of Chemical Physics
JF - The Journal of Chemical Physics
IS - 3
ER -