NO chemisorption dynamics on thick FePc and ttbu-FePc films

The NO chemisorption dynamics on ordered multilayer iron phthalocyanine (FePc) and quasiamorphous multilayer tetra-t-butyl FePc (ttbu-FePc) films on a Au(111) substrate was investigated using the King and Wells reflection technique. The NO zero coverage or initial sticking probabilities (S(0)) were measured as a function of sample temperature (T(s)) and beam energy (E(i)). The experimental results for both films show a monotonic decrease in S(0) with increasing T(s) and E(i) consistent with NO adsorption occurring via a multiple pathway precursor-mediated mechanism in which the adsorbate initially physisorbs to the FePc organics, diffuses, and chemisorbs to the Fe metal center. The saturation coverage is 3% for the multilayer FePc surface and only 2% for the multilayer ttbu-FePc surface consistent with NO chemisorption occurring only on the Fe metal, where NO chemisorbs to 100% of the surface Fe metal centers. The reduced saturation coverage in the ttbu-FePc film is attributed to fewer Fe metal centers in the less dense ttbu-FePc films. A comparison of NO sticking on a multilayer FePc/Au(111) film with NO sticking on a monolayer FePc/Au(111) film shows that S(0) is greater on the multilayer FePc film for all T(s) and E(i), consistent with an increase in collision inelasticity for NO/multilayer FePc/Au(111).