ESDIAD of Small Molecules on Surfaces: A Few Caveats

Abstract

ESDIAD (Electron Stimulated Desorption Ion Angular Distributions) has proven to be an extremely useful method for characterizing the local bonding structure of molecules at surfaces and a number of examples are indicated below. In order to optimize ESDIAD measurements, however, care must be taken to avoid such pitfalls as beam damage, “defective” regions of the sample surface, and impurity adsorbates. Several recent illustrations of these problems are discussed.