Thermal model vibrational excitation

The theoretical model developed to explain these experiments is based on inelastic tunneling of electrons from the tip into the 2ir adsorbate resonance that induces vibrational excitation in a manner similar to that of the DIMET model (Figure 3.44(b)). Of course, in this case, the chemistry is induced by specific and variable energy hot electrons rather than a thermal distribution at Te. Another significant difference is that STM induced currents are low so that vibrational excitation rates are smaller than vibrational de-excitation rates via e-h pair damping. Therefore, coherent vibrational ladder climbing dominates over incoherent ladder climbing,... 

In laser-assisted thermal CVD by gas-phase heating, the laser is used to vibrationally excite the gas (e.g., SiH4) and active film precursors (e.g., SiH2). The modeling of these processes revolves around the transport phenomena that control the access of the film precursors to the surface, as exemplified by the finite-element analysis by Patnaik and Brown of amorphous silicon deposition (228). 

Figure 11 Adapted from Holmblad et al. [52]. Arrhenius plot of S0 vs. 1 /Tvlb for CH4 on Ni(l 0 0). Shown in the plot is the calculated thermal sticking coefficient from the model developed by Holmblad et al. [52]. Also shown are the separate contributions from the methane v = 0, v = 1, and v = 2 vibrational excitations, along with data obtained by Chorkendorff et al. [54],...

For triatomic molecules, the contribution of hot bands cannot be expressed as a function of energy alone (see (5)) and therefore cannot be expressed in a compact analytic formula like Formula (C.3). However, for rigid triatomic molecules like CO2, NO2, SO2, O3 and N2O, the contribution of hot bands is weak at room temperature (and below) because hco kT for all normal mode frequencies. Note that the width of the contribution to the Abs. XS associated with each excited vibrational level (hot bands) is proportional to the slope of the upper FES along the normal mode of the ground electronic corresponding to each excited (thermally populated) vibrational level. This fact explains why numerical models (e.g. using ground state normal coordinates) are able to calculate the Abs. XS. These calculations are of Frank-Condon type. 

Collision-induced vibrational excitation and relaxation by the bath molecules are the fundamental processes that characterize dissociation and recombination at low bath densities. The close relationship between the frequency-dep>endent friction and vibrational relaxation is discussed in Section V A. The frequency-dependent collisional friction of Section III C is used to estimate the average energy transfer jjer collision, and this is compared with the results from one-dimensional simulations for the Morse potential in Section V B. A comparison with molecular dynamics simulations of iodine in thermal equilibrium with a bath of argon atoms is carried out in Section V C. The nonequilibrium situation of a diatomic poised near the dissociation limit is studied in Section VD where comparisons of the stochastic model with molecular dynamics simulations of bromine in argon are made. The role of solvent packing and hydrodynamic contributions to vibrational relaxation are also studied in this section. 

Experimental studies have had an enormous impact on the development of unimolecular rate theory. A set of classical thermal unimolecular dissociation reactions by Rabinovitch and co-workers [6-10], and chemical activation experiments by Rabinovitch and others [11-14], illustrated that the separability and symmetry of normal modes assumed by Slater theory is inconsistent with experiments. Eor many molecules and experimental conditions, RRKM theory is a substantially more accurate model for the unimolecular rate constant. Chemical activation experiments at high pressures [15,16] also provided information regarding the rate of vibrational energy flow within molecules. Experiments [17,18] for which molecules are vibrationally excited by overtone excitation of a local mode (e.g. C-H or O-H bond) gave results consistent with the chemical activation experiments and in overall good agreement with RRKM theory [19]. 

The relative importance of vibrational and translational energy in promoting chemical reactions is of both theoretical and practical interest. In reactions of diatomic molecules with atoms it has been substantiated both experimentally and theoretically that for endothermic reactions vibrational energy is more important, while for exothermic reactions the opposite is true. For polyatomic molecules, however, there is insufficient experimental and theoretical evidence to draw conclusions. The major work on laser-excited polyatomic reactions has involved the vibrational excitation of ozone in its exothermic reaction with nitric oxide. Although the vibrational energy increased the reaction rate, comparison with statistical models and the temperature dependence of the thermal reaction indicate about equal importance for vibrational and translational energy. On the other hand, a molecular beam study of the temperature dependence of the reaction of potassium with sulfur hexafluoride" has shown a definite preference for vibrational energy of the SF. ... 

We consider single phase and two phase flows of a pure substance through a Laval nozzle. We presume that mechanical, thermal and chemical equilibrium between the phases can be maintained. The flow will be treated as steady and one-dimensional. To verify the flow model we apply a cubic equation of state with linear temperature dependence (Abbott [11]). Internal energy and specific heat, respectively, take into account vibrational excitation of the molecules (Chaves [12]). As a parameter characterizing the behaviour of fluids in case of adiabatic phase changes we define the nondimensionalized specific heat of the perfect gas at the critical temperature ... 

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