Publication Date:
2015-11-28
Description:
How much translational energy atoms and molecules lose in collisions at surfaces determines whether they adsorb or scatter. The fact that hydrogen (H) atoms stick to metal surfaces poses a basic question. Momentum and energy conservation demands that the light H atom cannot efficiently transfer its energy to the heavier atoms of the solid in a binary collision. How then do H atoms efficiently stick to metal surfaces? We show through experiments that H-atom collisions at an insulating surface (an adsorbed xenon layer on a gold single-crystal surface) are indeed nearly elastic, following the predictions of energy and momentum conservation. In contrast, H-atom collisions with the bare gold surface exhibit a large loss of translational energy that can be reproduced by an atomic-level simulation describing electron-hole pair excitation.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Bunermann, Oliver -- Jiang, Hongyan -- Dorenkamp, Yvonne -- Kandratsenka, Alexander -- Janke, Svenja M -- Auerbach, Daniel J -- Wodtke, Alec M -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2015 Dec 11;350(6266):1346-9. doi: 10.1126/science.aad4972. Epub 2015 Nov 26.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Institute for Physical Chemistry, Georg-August University of Gottingen, Tammannstrasse 6, 37077 Gottingen, Germany. Department of Dynamics at Surfaces, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Am Fassberg 11, 37077 Gottingen, Germany. International Center for Advanced Studies of Energy Conversion, Georg-August University of Gottingen, Tammannstrasse 6, 37077 Gottingen, Germany. oliver.buenermann@chemie.uni-goettingen.de. ; Institute for Physical Chemistry, Georg-August University of Gottingen, Tammannstrasse 6, 37077 Gottingen, Germany. ; Institute for Physical Chemistry, Georg-August University of Gottingen, Tammannstrasse 6, 37077 Gottingen, Germany. Department of Dynamics at Surfaces, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Am Fassberg 11, 37077 Gottingen, Germany. ; Institute for Physical Chemistry, Georg-August University of Gottingen, Tammannstrasse 6, 37077 Gottingen, Germany. Department of Dynamics at Surfaces, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Am Fassberg 11, 37077 Gottingen, Germany. International Center for Advanced Studies of Energy Conversion, Georg-August University of Gottingen, Tammannstrasse 6, 37077 Gottingen, Germany.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26612832" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
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Chemistry and Pharmacology
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Computer Science
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Medicine
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Natural Sciences in General
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Physics
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