Observation of vibrational excitation and deexcitation for NO (v = 2) scattering from au(111): evidence for electron-hole-pair mediated energy transfer

Phys Rev Lett. 2000 Mar 27;84(13):2985-8. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.2985.

Abstract

Measurements of vibrational excitation and deexcitation of NO (v = 2) scattering from a Au(111) surface show that the probability of both processes increases strongly with the kinetic energy of the incident NO. These results are qualitatively consistent with a vibrational energy transfer mechanism involving electron-hole pairs but not with competing adiabatic models. The form of the energy dependence, and other features of the measurements, are not in accord with existing calculations.