Laser-induced desorption electronic mechanism

Some recent advances in stimulated desorption were made with the use of femtosecond lasers. For example, it was shown by using a femtosecond laser to initiate the desorption of CO from Cu while probing the surface with SHG, that the entire process is completed in less than 325 fs [90]. The mechanism for this kind of laser-induced desorption has been temied desorption induced by multiple electronic transitions (DIMET) [91]. Note that the mechanism must involve a multiphoton process, as a single photon at the laser frequency has insufScient energy to directly induce desorption. DIMET is a modification of the MGR mechanism in which each photon excites the adsorbate to a higher vibrational level, until a suflBcient amount of vibrational energy has been amassed so that the particle can escape the surface. 

Using fs laser excitation at 620 nm, a 2PC in Y of 0.5ps [399] implicates hot electrons, probably thermalized at Te, as the mechanism for desorption induced by the fs laser (Section 2.6.2). Rotational state distributions are nearly Boltzmann characterized by Tf. The 2PC of internal state distributions was also obtained. Rather surprisingly, significant differences in these 2PC were obtained for T and the state-resolved yield for the two spin-orbit states and this was qualitatively rationalized by a DIMET picture [399]. Where overlap in experiments exist, the qualitative results are similar to those for fs laser induced desorption of NO/Pd(lll) [400,401]. For this latter system, the absolute yield Y is large at typical fluencies used in the experiments and a very hot vibrational distribution was observed (Tv = 2900 K). 

An ultrafast laser can excite the surface electrons and these can induce chemistry as well as desorption prior to their being rapidly ( 1 ps) thermalized with the phonons (Bonn et ai, 1999). The electronic mechanism for laser-induced desorp-tion(Gomer, 1983 Gadzuk, 1988 Avouris and Walkup, 1989) is through the temporary formation of the negative ion of the adsorbate. The ion is pnlled sttongly toward the surface while its equiUbrium distance tends to increase. Shortly thereafter the charge is returned to the surface and a vibrationally excited neutral is ejected. 

Pt(l 11) [6-8], Cu(l 1 1) [9] and Ag(l 1 1) [9], and CO fromPt(00 1) [10] andPt(l 1 1) [11,12]. On the other hand, these molecules are not desorbed from Ni and Pd metal surfaces in spite of the isoelectronic character of the metals Ni, Pd and Pt [13,14]. Desorption induced by subpicosecond-pulsed laser takes place via multiple correlated (and partially coherent) electronic transitions DIMET. DIMET is a very different mechanism from DIET [15-17] and in DIMET the vibrational excitation during the multiple electronic transitions leads to the desorption. Desorption via multiple vibrational transitions has also been observed using an infrared laser [18]. However, these topics are not described in this review. 

Photo-induced reaction on a metal surface usually consists of several elementary reactions and it is difficult to model the whole reaction process. However, any reactions need to be triggered by electronic excitation. As stated in Section 20.1.4, the major mechanism is indirect excitation thus we focus on modeling the indirect excitation reaction. Since desorption from the surface is one of the simplest processes and can be a prototype for other complex surface reactions, DIET or DIME are clearly the best to study [10, 48, 53, 57, 96]. In photochemistry, continuous wave or nanosecond lasers lead to DIET, where desorption increase linearly with fluence. In contrast, the DIMET process is caused by intense and short laser pulses on the picosecond or femtosecond time scale, with nonlinear dependence on fluence. Since the fluence is proportional to the number of created hot electrons in the bulk, linear... 

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