Non-adiabatic processes in the charge transfer reaction of O2 molecules with potassium surfaces without dissociation

Thin potassium films grown on Si(001) substrates are used to measure internal chemicurrents and the external emission of exoelectrons simultaneously during adsorption of molecular oxygen on K surfaces at 120 K. The experiments clarify the dynamics of electronic excitations at a simple metal with a narrow valence band. X-ray photoemission reveals that for exposures below 5 L almost exclusively peroxide K2O2 is formed, i.e., no dissociation of the molecule occurs during interaction. Still a significant chemicurrent and a delayed exoelectron emission are detected due to a rapid injection of unoccupied molecular levels below the Fermi level. Since the valence band width of potassium is approximately equal to the potassium work function (2.4 eV) the underlying mechanism of exoemission is an Auger relaxation whereas chemicurrents are detected after resonant charge transfer from the metal valence band into the injected level. The change of the chemicurrent and exoemission efficiencies with oxygen coverage can be deduced from the kinetics of the reaction and the recorded internal and external emission currents traces. It is shown that the non-adiabaticity of the reaction increases with coverage due to a reduction of the electronic density of states at the surface while the work function does not vary significantly. Therefore, the peroxide formation is one of the first reaction systems which exhibits varying non-adiabaticity and efficiencies during the reaction. Non-adiabatic calculations based on model Hamiltonians and density functional theory support the picture of chemicurrent generation and explain the rapid injection of hot hole states by an intramolecular motion, i.e., the expansion of the oxygen molecule on the timescale of a quarter of a vibrational period.