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Updated: Aug 29, 2026

Aqueous Droplets Used as Enzymatic Microreactors and Their Electromagnetic Actuation
Published on: August 28, 2017
Electronic excitation and dynamic promotion of a surface reaction
D N Denzler1, C Frischkorn, C Hess
1Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Faradayweg 4-6, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
Abstract:
The mechanism of recombinative desorption of hydrogen from a Ru(0001) surface induced by femtosecond-laser excitation has been investigated and compared to thermally initiated desorption. For the laser-driven process, it is shown that hot substrate electrons mediate the reaction within a few hundred femtoseconds resulting in a huge isotope effect between H2 and D2 in the desorption yield. In mixed saturation coverages, this ratio crucially depends on the proportions of H and D. Deviations from second order desorption kinetics demonstrate that the recombination is dynamically promoted by excitation of neighboring, but nonreacting adatoms. A concentration dependent rate constant which accounts for the faster excitation of H versus D is proposed.
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