Electron-hole pair mechanism for excitation of intramolecular vibrations in molecule-surface scattering

Abstract

The vibrational excitation of NO molecules scattered from Ag surfaces is re-examined on the basis of the model introduced by Newns. The Keldysh Green function is used in order to calculate the excitation probability for intra-molecular vibrations. It is shown that the excitation probability from the vibrational ground state to the first excited state is strongly reduced if the de-excitation process subsequent to the excitation process is taken into account in the molecule-surface scattering.