Abstract

The interaction of laser radiation with chemical species adsorbed on solid surfaces is a process of relevance to vibrationally activated desorption and other reactive processes. For desorption, photons can either excite an internal mode of the adsorbate, A, forming A^* which can convert to translational motion and removal, or the photons can directly excite the adspecies-surface bond A-S above the dissociation limit. In both cases the important competing process is vibrational deactivation due to the coupling with the modes of the solid lattice. The central question is the amount of energy that can be localized in the surface bond at a given laser intensity.

© 1985 Optical Society of America