Time dependent characteristics of electron tunnelling processes in H-, O- and F- formation on Ag(111)

Results of a study of electron transfer processes in the interaction of hydrogen, oxygen and fluorine with Ag(1 1 1) are reported for a wide range of interaction times. We observe that for long interaction times, the yield of H-, resulting from resonant electron exchange, is much larger than what would be expected for a jellium like metal surface with a similar work function. For short interaction times on the other hand, the yields follow the trend for jellium like surfaces. These results confirm the predictions of the theoretical work using a wave packet propagation method (Phys. Rev. Lett. 80 (1998) 1996) on electron transfer on surfaces with L band gap. In the case of O- and F- significant effects were not observed. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.