A calculation of surface diffusion coefficients of adsorbates on the (110) plane of tungsten

Abstract

An attempt to calculate the prefactors of the diffusion coefficients of tungsten, xenon and oxygen atoms on the W(110) plane in the zero-coverage limit was made, using a Fokker-Planck formalism. Pairwise substrate-substrate and adsorbate-substrate atom interactions were assumed and expressed by appropriate Morse potentials. The vibrations of the substrate were approximated by an Einstein model of independent oscillators. When Morse potentials were so adjusted as to give good agreement between experimental and calculated activation energies, a prefactor in excellent agreement with experiment was calculated for W/W(110). For Xe/W(110) and O/W(110) the calculated values were ∼10 −4 cm 2/s, i.e. essentially “normal”, while the experimental values are much lower. Possible reasons for the discrepancies are discussed.