State Specific of the Laser Induced Desorption of NO from Si 111

Abstract : A wide variety of chemical processes at semiconductor surfaces have been observed to be promoted by radiation. The possible mechanisms for the transfer of the initial photon energy to the reaction coordinate are many, including simple substrate heating, substrate carrier driven reactions, and localized adsorbate photoexcitation. State-resolved studies of laser-induced reaction products have proven extremely illuminating as they often allow the distinction and quantification of various competing excitation mechanisms. We present the results of a state-resolved study of the laser-induced desorption (LID) of NO from Si(111) in which the energy partitioning in the desorbed NO is found to vary dramatically with the initial NO coverage due to the presence of competing excitation channels.