Isotope effects in electron impact desorption of CO and O2 adsorbed on the (110) plane of tungsten

Abstract

Results on the isotope effect for total and ionic desorption cross sections in the electron impact desorption of various binding states of CO on the (110) plane of tungsten, and of oxygen on this plane are presented and discussed. It is shown that the observations allow a dissection of cross sections into excitation cross sections and escape probabilities, and that the latter can be used to estimate lifetimes of excited or ionic states. It is found that excitation cross sections for total desorption are of the order of 10−16–10−17 cm2, but seem to be significantly smaller in some cases for excitation to ionic states, suggesting that different excitations are involved. In all cases examined here the isotope effect for total desorption is much smaller than for ion production. This can be explained by the fact that ion lifetimes are somewhat shorter than those of excited neutrals. Lifetimes are estimated, in the cases examined, to be of the order of 10−14s.