The sticking coefficient of thermal neon atoms on a flat Ru(001) surface (Tₛ=7 K) is found experimentally to be very low and strongly dependent on gas temperature (1×{}10^-3 to 8×{}10^-2 for Tg from 600 to 30 K) on the clean surface, and to increase strongly with coverage to about 0.7. The zero-coverage values are incompatible with classical mechanical theory, irrespective of assumed interaction parameters, requiring substantial zero-phonon scattering. Calculations treating the energy transfer to phonons quantum-mechanically can reproduce the data with reasonable parameters.
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Schlichting et al. (1988) studied this question.
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