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Electronically induced surface chemistry: localised bond breaking versus delocalisation
Author(s) -
Menzel Dietrich
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
surface and interface analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.52
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1096-9918
pISSN - 0142-2421
DOI - 10.1002/sia.2429
Subject(s) - chemistry , excited state , chemical physics , realm , molecule , chemical bond , coupling (piping) , nanotechnology , surface (topology) , photochemistry , computational chemistry , atomic physics , physics , materials science , organic chemistry , political science , law , metallurgy , geometry , mathematics
Abstract Surface photochemistry can be considerably different from the corresponding molecular photochemistry. This is due to the fact that bonding of reactants to a surface induces modifications also in reaction paths via electronically excited states. These changes are of importance in respect of both fundamental and applied research. The past 40 years have seen the development of quite detailed understanding of the underlying effects, in particular in the case of bond breaking, which shows up by desorption of neutral and charged molecules and/or fragments. Recent developments in laser technology and nanostructuring have brought renewed interest to this field. Here a survey is given of the important facts and ideas in this realm. It will be argued that the counterplay between localisation of excitations and their delocalisation by coupling is the decisive effect to be understood. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.