Electron-induced reactions of aligned physisorbed organic molecules on Si(001) or coinage metals have been characterized by STM of their reagents and products. The configurations intermediate between reagents and products were obtained from a two-electronic-state quantum mechanical model in which the adsorbate was briefly excited to an anti-bonding anionic state and the dynamics were then followed by classical mechanics across the excited and ground potential-energy surfaces. The dynamics were characterized in specific instances by localization of products to the neighbourhood of the physisorbed reagents, directionality of product-recoil dependent on reagent alignment, chiral reaction, bond-selective or multi-bond reaction (see picture for the latter), chain-reaction, or electron-induced long-range migration of reagent prior to surface reaction.One electron breaks two C-I bonds in o-diiodobenzene physisorbed on Cu(110), to form two chemisorbed I-atoms and an adjacent chemisorbed phenylene.

How physisorption guides chemisorption: Studied a-molecule-at-a-time by STM

247th National Meeting (2014)

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