Time-of-flight techniques for the investigation of kinetic energy distributions of ions and neutrals desorbed by core excitations.

Abstract We present simple devices operating on the basis of mass spectrometers and time-of-flight techniques for the detection of kinetic energy distributions of neutrals and ions desorbed by photon excitation from adsorbates. We use data on photon stimulated desorption of O + and O 0 from chemisorbed monolayers of CO to demonstrate the capabilities of our instruments. Different trends of the kinetic energy distributions as a function of the photon energy are revealed for the two species and explained on the basis of previously obtained results. The future potential of the methods is discussed.