Density matrix treatment of combined instantaneous and delayed dissipation for an electronically excited adsorbate on a solid surface

Abstract

The interaction of an excited adsorbate with a medium undergoing electronic and vibrational transitions leads to fast dissipation due to electronic energy relaxation and slow (or delayed) dissipation from vibrational energy relaxation. A theoretical and computational treatment of these phenomena has been done in terms of a reduced density matrix satisfying a generalized Liouville-von Neumann equation, with instantaneous dissipation constructed from state-to-state transition rates, and delayed dissipation given by a memory term derived from the time-correlation function (TCF) of atomic displacements in the medium. Two representative applications are presented here, where electronic excitation may enhance vibrational relaxation of an adsorbate. They involve femtosecond excitation of (a) a CO molecule adsorbed on the Cu(001) metal surface and (b) a metal cluster on a semiconductor surface, Ag(3)Si(111):H, both electronically excited by visible light and undergoing electron transfer and dissipative dynamics by electronic and vibrational relaxations. Models have been parametrized in both cases from electronic structure calculations and known TCFs for the medium, which are slowly decaying in case (a) and fast decaying in case (b). This requires different numerical procedures in the solution of the integrodifferential equations for the reduced density matrix, which have been solved with an extension of the Runge-Kutta algorithm. Results for the populations of vibronic states versus time show that they oscillate due to vibrational coupling through dissipative interaction with the substrate and show quantum coherence. The total population of electronic states is, however, little affected by vibrational motions. Vibrational relaxation is important only at very long times to establish thermal equilibrium.