Alexander Kandratsenka

Electron-hole pair excitation determines the mechanism of hydrogen atom adsorption.

Sticking hydrogen atoms to surfaces The simplest case of adsorption at a surface—that of a hydrogen atom—is actually quite complicated. This is because it is not clear how this light atom can transfer enough momentum to the heavy surface that it can slow down and stick. Bünermann et al. prepared highly energetically controlled hydrogen atoms (see the Perspective by Brune). On a gold surface, inelastic collisions occurred during adsorption, but not when an insulating layer of xenon atoms was used. Science, this issue p. 1346; see also p. 1321 Control of the energy of an atomic hydrogen beam allowed measurement of its inelastic scattering from surfaces. [Also see Perspective by Brune] 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.

Relating linear vibrational spectroscopy to condensed-phase hydrogen-bonded structures: Liquid-to-supercritical water

The pressure and temperature-dependent linear absorption spectrum of partially deuterated water HOD dissolved in heavy water D(2)O was measured in the OH-stretching spectral region. The temperature was varied in the interval of 298 K</=T</=700 K while the density was changed within the range of 12 moll</=rho</=58 moll corresponding to the liquid and the supercritical phases of the fluid solution. The spectra were analyzed in terms of the temperature and density dependent frequency of maximal absorbance nu(max)(T,rho) and their full widths at half maximum Deltanu(T,rho). In parallel, molecular dynamics simulations of the fluid solution were carried out to obtain the average nearest neighbor O-O distance r(OO) ((1))(T,rho) and its dispersion Deltar(OO) ((1))(T,rho) at any state point (T,rho) for which an absorption spectrum was recorded. A correlation is presented between the experimental spectroscopic quantities nu(max)(T,rho) and Deltanu(T,rho) on the one hand and the local structural quantities r(OO) ((1))(T,rho) and Deltar(OO) ((1))(T,rho) on the other. This intuitive correlation can be used as a critical test for future perturbational simulations of the OH-stretching frequency shifts with hydrogen-bond geometry. Finally, a connection is made to the average hydrogen-bond connectivity in the fluid via the temperature and density dependent dielectric constant of water.

Nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations of vibrational energy relaxation of HOD in D2O

Vibrational energy relaxation of HOD in deuterated water is investigated performing classical nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations. A flexible SPC/E model is employed to describe the intermolecular interactions and the intramolecular potential of the D(2)O solvent. A more accurate intramolecular potential is used for HOD. Our results for the OH stretch, OD stretch, and HOD bend vibrational relaxation times are 2.7, 0.9, and 0.57 ps, respectively. Exciting the OH stretching mode the main relaxation pathway involves a transition to the bending vibration. These results are in agreement with recent semiclassical Landau-Teller calculations. Contrary to this previous work, however, we observe a strong coupling of bending and OH stretching mode to the HOD rotation. As a result almost half of the total vibrational energy is transferred through the HOD rotation to the bath. At the same time the most efficient acceptor mode is the D(2)O rotation indicating the importance of resonant libration-to-libration energy transfer. We also find significant vibrational excitation of the D(2)O bending mode of the D(2)O solvent by V-V energy transfer from the HOD bending mode.

An accurate full-dimensional potential energy surface for H-Au(111): Importance of nonadiabatic electronic excitation in energy transfer and adsorption.

We have constructed a potential energy surface (PES) for H-atoms interacting with fcc Au(111) based on fitting the analytic form of the energy from Effective Medium Theory (EMT) to ab initio energy values calculated with density functional theory. The fit used input from configurations of the H-Au system with Au atoms at their lattice positions as well as configurations with the Au atoms displaced from their lattice positions. It reproduces the energy, in full dimension, not only for the configurations used as input but also for a large number of additional configurations derived from ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) trajectories at finite temperature. Adiabatic molecular dynamics simulations on this PES reproduce the energy loss behavior of AIMD. EMT also provides expressions for the embedding electron density, which enabled us to develop a self-consistent approach to simulate nonadiabatic electron-hole pair excitation and their effect on the motion of the incident H-atoms. For H atoms with an energy of 2.7 eV colliding with Au, electron-hole pair excitation is by far the most important energy loss pathway, giving an average energy loss ≈3 times that of the adiabatic case. This increased energy loss enhances the probability of the H-atom remaining on or in the Au slab by a factor of 2. The most likely outcome for H-atoms that are not scattered also depends prodigiously on the energy transfer mechanism; for the nonadiabatic case, more than 50% of the H-atoms which do not scatter are adsorbed on the surface, while for the adiabatic case more than 50% pass entirely through the 4 layer simulation slab.

Multiquantum Vibrational Excitation of NO Scattered from Au(111): Quantitative Comparison of Benchmark Data to Ab Initio Theories of Nonadiabatic Molecule–Surface Interactions

Surface phenomena: measurements of absolute probabilities are reported for the vibrational excitation of NO(v=0→1,2) molecules scattered from a Au(111) surface. These measurements were quantitatively compared to calculations based on ab initio theoretical approaches to electronically nonadiabatic molecule-surface interactions. Good agreement was found between theory and experiment (see picture; T(s) =surface temperature, P=excitation probability, and E=incidence energy of translation).

The importance of accurate adiabatic interaction potentials for the correct description of electronically nonadiabatic vibrational energy transfer: A combined experimental and theoretical study of NO(v = 3) collisions with a Au(111) surface

We present a combined experimental and theoretical study of NO(v = 3 → 3, 2, 1) scattering from a Au(111) surface at incidence translational energies ranging from 0.1 to 1.2 eV. Experimentally, molecular beam-surface scattering is combined with vibrational overtone pumping and quantum-state selective detection of the recoiling molecules. Theoretically, we employ a recently developed first-principles approach, which employs an Independent Electron Surface Hopping (IESH) algorithm to model the nonadiabatic dynamics on a Newns-Anderson Hamiltonian derived from density functional theory. This approach has been successful when compared to previously reported NO/Au scattering data. The experiments presented here show that vibrational relaxation probabilities increase with incidence energy of translation. The theoretical simulations incorrectly predict high relaxation probabilities at low incidence translational energy. We show that this behavior originates from trajectories exhibiting multiple bounces at the surface, associated with deeper penetration and favored (N-down) molecular orientation, resulting in a higher average number of electronic hops and thus stronger vibrational relaxation. The experimentally observed narrow angular distributions suggest that mainly single-bounce collisions are important. Restricting the simulations by selecting only single-bounce trajectories improves agreement with experiment. The multiple bounce artifacts discovered in this work are also present in simulations employing electronic friction and even for electronically adiabatic simulations, meaning they are not a direct result of the IESH algorithm. This work demonstrates how even subtle errors in the adiabatic interaction potential, especially those that influence the interaction time of the molecule with the surface, can lead to an incorrect description of electronically nonadiabatic vibrational energy transfer in molecule-surface collisions.

Experimental and theoretical study of multi-quantum vibrational excitation: NO(v = 0→1,2,3) in collisions with Au(111).

We measured absolute probabilities for vibrational excitation of NO(v = 0) molecules in collisions with a Au(111) surface at an incidence energy of translation of 0.4 eV and surface temperatures between 300 and 1100 K. In addition to previously reported excitation to v = 1 and v = 2, we observed excitation to v = 3. The excitation probabilities exhibit an Arrhenius dependence on surface temperature, indicating that the dominant excitation mechanism is nonadiabatic coupling to electron-hole pairs. The experimental data are analyzed in terms of a recently introduced kinetic model, which was extended to include four vibrational states. We describe a subpopulation decomposition of the kinetic model, which allows us to examine vibrational population transfer pathways. The analysis indicates that sequential pathways (v = 0 → 1 → 2 and v = 0 → 1 → 2 → 3) alone cannot adequately describe production of v = 2 or 3. In addition, we performed first-principles molecular dynamics calculations that incorporate electronically nonadiabatic dynamics via an independent electron surface hopping (IESH) algorithm, which requires as input an ab initio potential energy hypersurface (PES) and nonadiabatic coupling matrix elements, both obtained from density functional theory (DFT). While the IESH-based simulations reproduce the v = 1 data well, they slightly underestimate the excitation probabilities for v = 2, and they significantly underestimate those for v = 3. Furthermore, this implementation of IESH appears to overestimate the importance of sequential energy transfer pathways. We make several suggestions concerning ways to improve this IESH-based model.

Vibrational inelasticity of highly vibrationally excited NO on Ag(111).

Multiquantum relaxation of highly vibrationally excited nitric oxide on noble metals has become one of the best studied examples of the Born-Oppenheimer approximations failure to describe molecular interactions at metal surfaces. When first reported, relaxation of highly vibrationally excited NO occurring in collisions with Au(111) surfaces exhibited the largest vibrational inelasticity seen in molecule-surface collisions, and no system has been found to date exhibiting a greater vibrational inelasticity. In this work, we compare the relaxation of NO(v = 11) in scattering events on Ag(111) to that on Au(111). The relaxation probability and the average vibrational energy loss are much higher when scattering from Ag(111). We discuss possible reasons for this remarkable phenomenon, which may be related to the dissociation of NO, possible on Ag(111) at lower energy compared with Au(111).

Toward detection of electron-hole pair excitation in H-atom collisions with Au(111): Adiabatic molecular dynamics with a semi-empirical full-dimensional potential energy surface.

Abstract We report an analytic potential energy surface (PES) based on several hundred DFT energies for H interacting with a Au(111) surface. Effective medium theory is used to fit the DFT data, which were obtained for the Au atoms held at their equilibrium positions. This procedure also provides an adequate treatment of the PES for displacements of Au atoms that occur during scattering of H atoms. The fitted PES is compared to DFT energies obtained from ab initio molecular dynamics trajectories. We present molecular dynamics simulations of energy and angle resolved scattering probabilities at five incidence angles at an incidence energy, Ei = 5 eV, and at a surface temperature, TS = 10 K. Simple single bounce trajectories are important at all incidence conditions explored here. Double bounce events also make up a significant fraction of the scattering. A qualitative analysis of the double-bounce events reveals that most occur as collisions of an H-atom with two neighboring surface gold atoms. The energy losses observed are consistent with a simple binary collision model, transferring typically less than 150 meV to the solid per bounce.

CO desorption from a catalytic surface: Elucidation of the role of steps by velocity-selected residence time measurements.

Directly measuring the rate of a surface chemical reaction remains a challenging problem. For example, even after more than 30 years of study, there is still no agreement on the kinetic parameters for one of the simplest surface reactions: desorption of CO from Pt(111). We present a new experimental technique for determining rates of surface reactions, the velocity-selected residence time method, and demonstrate it for thermal desorption of CO from Pt(111). We use UV−UV double resonance spectroscopy to record surface residence times at selected final velocities of the desorbing CO subsequent to dosing with a pulsed molecular beam. Velocity selection differentiates trapping-desorption from direct scattering and removes influences on the temporal profile arising from the velocity distribution of the desorbing CO. The kinetic data thus obtained are of such high quality that bi-exponential desorption kinetics of CO from Pt(111) can be clearly seen. We assign the faster of the two rate processes to desorption from (111) terraces, and the slower rate process to sequential diffusion from steps to terraces followed by desorption. The influence of steps, whose density may vary from crystal to crystal, accounts for the diversity of previously reported (single exponential) kinetics results. Using transition-state theory, we derive the binding energy of CO to Pt(111) terraces, D(0)(terr) (Pt−CO) = 34 ± 1 kcal/mol (1.47 ± 0.04 eV) for the low coverage limit (≤0.03 ML) where adsorbate−adsorbate interactions are negligible. This provides a useful benchmark for electronic structure theory of adsorbates on metal surfaces.