A molecular beam study of the scattering and chemisorption dynamics of N2 on Ru(0001)

The chemisorption of N₂ on Ru{0001} has been studied with supersonic molecular beams in the translational energy regime from 0.1 to 1.8 eV. No sticking with a probability of more than 10^-4 has been observed. Angular flux distributions and variations in the kinetic energy of the scattered molecules provide evidence for the existence of different scattering regimes. The scattering behavior is explained in terms of scattering from a dual repulsive wall, which is attributed to the existence of a metastable molecular precursor state to nitrogen dissociation, thus providing indirect proof for recent theoretical predictions for this system.