The interaction of O2 with Ag(111) probed by beam experiments

Ion beam and Molecular beam studies involving the interaction of (hyper-)thermal O2 with Ag(111) are reported. Several different scattering paths are observed: direct ionisation, physisorption followed by desorption, direct-inelastic scattering from both the physisorption and the chemisorption potential, transient trapping-desorption, molecular chemisorption and dissociative chemisorption. The underlying dynamics of all of these processes is reviewed. The results are discussed in terms of simple potential energy surfaces.