DYNAMIC ASPECT OF THE INTERACTION OF DIATOMIC MOLECULES WITH METAL SURFACES

The dynamics of the scattering processes of diatomic molecules from metal surfaces has been studied with different theoretical approaches. Modified LEPS (London-Eyring-Polanyi-Sato) potential surfaces for several diatomie molecule-surface systems have been constructed and examined for the dynamic study. The surfaces are treated as rigid but corrugated. The potential parameters are adjusted to produce reliable potential hypersurfaces. Molecular dissociation, diffraction, adsorption and consequent desorption in the scattering processes have been observed through quasiclassieal trajectory calculations. The significance of the effective corrugation of the potential surfaces has been evaluated in calculating the dissociation and adsorption probabilities. Vibration-rotation-translation energy transfer in the inelastic scattering is investigated to understand the mechanism of selective adsorptions mediated through vibrational or rotational degrees of freedom. We have carried out quantum mechanical calculations to obtain the rotational and vibrational transition probabilities. Relative importance of rotational and vibrational transitions for each adsorbed state with respect to incidence energy has been carefully examined to determine the dominant factor which causes the adsorbed state. The results show that vibration mediation is an essential factor to the selective adsorption especially in the ease of higher incidence energies.