Molecular interactions at Graphene Surfaces
Solid State and Surface Chemistry, Material Synthesis
Final Report Abstract
The first experiments investigating the interactions of NO with graphene have been performed. These were carried out in a parallel dual-experiment design, where absolute state-to-state scattering probabilities could be obtained by comparison to scattering experiments on an internal standard. We measured vibrational excitation probabilities, rotational state population distributions and scattering angular distributions. We obtained evidence of a relatively deep binding well that allows trapping of the NO molecule when colliding at incidence energies as high as 0.45 eV. At incidence energies of 0.8 and 1.2 eV, there is little or no trapping/desorption—only direct scattering is seen. The absolute vibrational excitation probabilities are similar to those found for NO scattering from Au(111). This provides an important new testing ground for theoretical treatments of Born-Oppenheimer failure in molecule surface interactions.
