Surface light-induced drift resulting from inelastic scattering

Abstract

Surface light-induced drift (SLID) is known to give rise to an extremely sensitive method of studying the state-specificity of gas-surface interactions. SLID occurs under velocity-selective laser excitation of a resonant gas whenever the scattering, trapping, or chemisorption by the cell walls are state dependent. In this brief report we derive and solve kinetic equations to analyze SLID arising in the case of inelastic scattering. We analyze both (a) the case when the coefficients describing the inelasticity of gas-surface quasi-specular scattering are state dependent, but are not dependent upon the velocity of the impinging particle, and (b) the case of velocity-dependent coefficients. Finally, we briefly outline the way to use this approach to interpret the results of possible experiments on SLID for atoms interacting with simple surfaces. PACS Nos.: 34.50Dy, 78.66-w