Desorption kinetics

Abstract

After a short survey of the problems in desorption kinetics we review the theory of phonon mediated physisorption kinetics at low coverage within the master equation approach (cascade model). A simplified Kramers-Fokker-Planck description is extracted. For finite coverage we review the mean field theory of multilayer physisorption and discuss the predicted compensation effect in the desorption rates around monolayer coverage. Lastly we look at photodesorption of molecules by resonant laser-molecular vibrational coupling.