Atom-single-phonon scattering, inelastic

There are no gas—metal systems for which the dominant loss mechanism has been determined. However, it can be anticipated that developments in angle-resolved inelastic atom beam scattering experiments, exemplified by the recent work of Feuerbacher and Allison [380] with scattering from LiF 100, will make good this deficiency. In cases where single surface phonons are responsible for the inelasticity in He scattering, time-of-flight measurements with the detector scanned away from the molecular beam enable the dispersion curves for surface phonons to be constructed. 

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