Experimental and theoretical studies of the effect of mass on the dynamics of gas/organic-surface energy transfer

The effect of mass on gas/organic-surface energy transfer is explored via investigation of the scattering dynamics of rare gases (Ne, Ar, and Kr) from regular (C H3 -terminated) and ω -fluorinated (C F3 -terminated) alkanethiol self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) at 60 kJmol collision energy. Molecular-beam scattering experiments carried out in ultrahigh vacuum and molecular-dynamics simulations based on high-accuracy potentials are used to obtain the rare-gases\u27 translational-energy distributions after collision with the SAMs. Simulations indicate that mass is the most important factor in determining the changes in the energy exchange dynamics for Ne, Ar, and Kr collisions on C H3 - and C F3 -terminated SAMs at 60 kJmol collision energy. Other factors, such as changes in the gas-surface potential and intrasurface interactions, play only a minor role in determining the differential dynamics behavior for the systems studied. © 2008 American Institute of Physics