Abstract
In this paper the first (to our knowledge) fully quantum-mechanical calculation of both the sticking coefficient and the inelastic scattering probability of atomic hydrogen and deuterium on a metal due to the electron-hole pair mechanism is presented. The results are obtained in the framework of the gettering theory of a gas in a closed vessel and by using a T-matrix formalism which includes higher-order processes. The sticking coefficient and the inelastic scattering probability are calculated with atom kinetic energy in the range 0--80 meV. In this region the inelastic scattering probability is shown to be smaller than the sticking coefficient. Within the limitations involved in our model, which only considers one electron-hole pair in the excited states, we obtain a maximum value of the sticking coefficient of hydrogen and deuterium up to about 0.8, for a reasonable parametrization of the nonadiabatic gas-surface interaction. This is related to a quantum-mechanical resonance in the transmission of the atom into the chemisorption potential, which we assume to be a square well for simplicity. The role of several step atomic transitions through unbound and bound states is analyzed for the sticking and the inelastic scattering processes.
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