Adsorption site, orientation and alignment of NO adsorbed on Au(100) using 3D-velocity map imaging, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and density functional theory.

Nitric oxide adsorption on a Au(100) single crystal has been investigated to identify the type of adsorption, the adsorption site, and the orientation and alignment of the adsorbed NO relative to the surface. This was done using a combination of 3D-surface velocity map imaging, near-ambient pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and density functional theory. NO was observed to be molecularly adsorbed on gold at ∼200 K.

Photodesorption of NO from Au(100) using 3D surface-velocity map imaging.

We measured the fully resolved 3-dimensional velocity distributions of nitric oxide photodesorbed from a gold single crystal. These experiments combine time-of-flight measurements and the velocity map imaging technique to yield velocity distributions resolved in three dimensions for a prototypical surface-adsorbate system. Nitric oxide adsorbed on Au(100) was photodesorbed using a 355 nm laser beam.