Fast atom diffraction from metallic surfaces

M.S. GRAVIELLE; G. A. BOCAN; R. DÍEZ MUIÑO

Viñadel Mar

Encuentro; V Encuentro Sud-Americano de Colisiones Inelásticas en la Materia; 2010

Comité del Encuentro Sud-Americano de Colisiones Inelásticas en la Materia

Diffraction from crystal surfaces produced by grazing scattering of atoms in the keV energy range is nowadays attracting considerable attention. The first experimental evidences of this effect were reported for insulator surfaces for which the presence of a band gap strongly suppresses inelastic electronic processes, favoring the conservation of quantum coherence. However, this diffraction effect has recently been observed at metallic materials  as well, although electron excitations were supposed to smudge interference signatures for these surfaces. The aim of this work is to study the atomic diffraction from metal surfaces by considering keV nitrogen atoms impinging grazingly on Ag(111) .