Translational and vibrational energy release in nitrogen recombinative desoprtion from Cu(111)

Nitrogen recombinative desorption from Cu(111) has been investigated using resonance enhanced multiphoton ionisation and ion time of flight measurements to obtain the release into N-2 product vibrational and translational excitation. N-2(v = 0) desorbs from a 700K surface with a mean translational energy perpendicular to the surface of 4.2 eV, a substantial fraction of the N-2 bond strength. The desorbed molecules an vibrationally hot, with a population ratio P(v = 1)/P(v = 0) = 0.52, corresponding to a vibrational temperature of 5100 K, Md N-2(v = 1) shows a slightly lower translational energy release than the ground state. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.