Phonon contribution to grazing incidence fast atom diffraction

Abstract

SynopsisWe address the effect of lattice vibrations of the crystal on grazing incidence fast atom diffraction (GIFAD) from insulator surfaces. To describe the phonon contribution to GIFAD we introduce a semi-quantum method, named Phonon-Surface Initial Value Representation (P-SIVR), which represents the surface with a harmonic crystal model, while the scattering process is given by the Surface Initial Value Representation approach including phonon excitations. P-SIVR results for Ne/LiF(001) are compared with other theoretical methods and available experiments.