Abstract:

　　Femtosecond laser pulses in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared are very efficient in promoting reactions at metal surfaces that cannot be initiated by thermal activation [1,2]. In pump-probe time-resolved vibrational spectroscopy, the femtosecond laser pulse (the pump) is combined with an IR pulse (the probe) in an attempt to time-resolve the initial dynamics of the adsorbate by recording the frequency and linewidth changes of its IR-active mode [3,4]. However, the experiments alone cannot provide a precise understanding of the mechanisms responsible for the initial adsorbate dynamics and subsequent evolution, including diffusion, desorption, and reactions. In this talk, a selection of our more recent theoretical studies on prototypical adsorbate-surface systems will be discussed. By combining a two-temperature model either with a Langevin dynamics that can eventually be coupled to the excited surface lattice [5,6] or with first-principles many-body perturbation theory [7,8], the challenge is to understand what factors will rule and compete in the transient adsorbate dynamics: the laser-induced hot electrons, the substrate hot phonons, the intermode coupling induced by the hot electrons, or in the case of large coverages the likely interadsorbate energy exchange.

References

[1] C. Frischkorn and M.Wolf, Chem. Rev., 106 (2006) 4207

[2] P. Saalfrank, Chem. Rev., 106 (2006) 4116

[3] H. Arnolds and M. Bonn, Surf. Sci. Rep. 65, 45 (2010)

[4] K.-i. Inoue, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 186101 (2016)

[5] I. Lončarić, M. Alducin, P. Saalfrank, and J.I. Juaristi, Phys. Rev. B, 93,014301 (2016)

[6] J. I. Juaristi, M. Alducin, and P. Saalfrank, Phys. Rev. B 95, 125439 (2017)

[7] D. Novko, M. Alducin, and J.I Juaristi, Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 156804 (2018)

[8] D. Novko, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett.122, 016806 (2019)

Biosketch:

　　Prof. Maite Alducin studied Physics at Complutense University of Madrid (Spain) in 1988, and received her Ph. D degree of Physics from Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU) in 1994. After several postdoc periods, she became an Assistant Professor in the Engineering department at ‘E.T.S. de Ingenieros Industriales de Bilbao’ (UPV/EHU). In 2003, she joined Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) as a Fellow Gipuzkoa. Since 2007, she became a tenured CSIC researcher in the joint Centro de Física de Materiales (CFM) of UPV/EHU and Spanish Research Council, in Donostia-San Sebastián. Her main fields of research are condensed matter theory and chemical physics, in particular the theory of electronic excitations in metallic systems. She is well-known for her work on the theory of electronic excitations in solids and surfaces, as well as in the theory of electron-phonon coupling of adsorbates on metal surfaces. She has published more than 100 scientific articles, including Physical Review Letters (13), Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters (4), Progress in Surface Science (1) and so on.