Abstract

For may ultrafast photoprocesses on metal surfaces it is crucial to ocnsider adsorbate motions in the presence of hot substrate electron distributions. State-resolved measurements of adsorbate vibrational energy relaxation and final state analysis of femtosecond desorption products are two classes of experiments that are used to elucidate the nature of energy transfer in these systems. There are few measuremens however, wherein the basic temperature dependences of adsorbate-substrate energy transfer rates are directly examined. In this paper we report such a measurement. In particular we study the temperatue-dependent coupling between low frequency adsorbate vibrations and metal substrate electrons.

© 1996 Optical Society of America