Stereodynamics in dissociative adsorption of NO on Si(111)

Hashinokuchi, Michihiro*; Okada, Michio*; Ito, Hironori*; Kasai, Toshio*; Moritani, Kosuke*; Teraoka, Yuden

We report results of studies on surface-temperature dependence of steric effects in dissociative adsorption processes of NO molecules on Si(111)-(77) surface by means of X-ray photoemission spectroscopy. Data presented here show that the reactive sticking probability for N-end collisions is larger than that in O-end collisions at an incident energy of 58 meV. Furthermore, this steric preference is quite sensitive to the surface temperature and the surface coverage. These facts reveal that transient surface trapping of NO molecules in a shallow precursor state plays a key role in the initial step of the NO decomposition on the Si(111)-(77) surface.