Investigation of ZPE and temperature effects on the Eley–Rideal recombination of hydrogen atoms on graphene using a multidimensional graphene–H–H potential

Sticking of atomic hydrogen on graphene

Recent years have witnessed an ever growing interest in the interactions between hydrogen atoms and a graphene sheet. Largely motivated by the possibility of modulating the electric, optical and magnetic properties of graphene, a huge number of studies have appeared recently that added to and enlarged earlier investigations on graphite and other carbon materials. In this review we give a glimpse of the many facets of this adsorption process, as they emerged from these studies. The focus is on those issues that have been addressed in detail, under carefully controlled conditions, with an emphasis on the interplay between the adatom structures, their formation dynamics and the electric, magnetic and chemical properties of the carbon sheet.

Structure of photodissociation fronts in star-forming regions revealed by observations of high-J CO emission lines with Herschel

CONTEXT

In bright photodissociation regions (PDRs) associated to massive star formation, the presence of dense "clumps" that are immersed in a less dense interclump medium is often proposed to explain the difficulty of models to account for the observed gas emission in high-excitation lines.

AIMS

We aim at presenting a comprehensive view of the modeling of the CO rotational ladder in PDRs, including the high-J lines that trace warm molecular gas at PDR interfaces.

METHODS

We observed the 12CO and 13CO ladders in two prototypical PDRs, the Orion Bar and NGC 7023 NW using the instruments onboard Herschel. We also considered line emission from key species in the gas cooling of PDRs (C+, O, H2) and other tracers of PDR edges such as OH and CH+. All the intensities are collected from Herschel observations, the literature and the Spitzer archive and are analyzed using the Meudon PDR code.

RESULTS

A grid of models was run to explore the parameter space of only two parameters: thermal gas pressure and a global scaling factor that corrects for approximations in the assumed geometry. We conclude that the emission in the high-J CO lines, which were observed up to J up =23 in the Orion Bar (J up =19 in NGC 7023), can only originate from small structures of typical thickness of a few 10-3 pc and at high thermal pressures (Pth ~ 108 K cm-3).

CONCLUSIONS

Compiling data from the literature, we found that the gas thermal pressure increases with the intensity of the UV radiation field given by G0, following a trend in line with recent simulations of the photoevaporation of illuminated edges of molecular clouds. This relation can help rationalising the analysis of high-J CO emission in massive star formation and provides an observational constraint for models that study stellar feedback on molecular clouds.

Full quantum dynamical investigation of the Eley-Rideal reaction forming H2 on a movable graphitic substrate at T = 0 K

The dynamics of the Eley-Rideal abstraction reaction of hydrogen atoms on a movable graphitic surface is investigated for the first time in a numerically exact fully quantum setting. A system-bath strategy was applied where the two recombining H atoms and a substrate C atom form a relevant subsystem, while the rest of the lattice takes the form of an independent oscillator bath. High-dimensional wavepacket simulations were performed in the collision energy range 0.2-1.0 eV with the help of the multi-layer multi-configuration time-dependent Hartree method, focusing on the collinear reaction on a zero-temperature surface. Results show that the dynamics is close to a sudden limit in which the reaction is much faster than the substrate motion. Unpuckering of the surface is fast (some tens of fs) but starts only after the formation of H₂ is completed, thereby determining a considerable substrate heating (∼0.8 eV per reactive event). Energy partitioning in the product molecule favors translational over vibrational energy, and H₂ molecules are vibrationally hot (∼1.5 eV) though to a lesser extent than previously predicted.

Quantum dynamical investigation of the isotope effect in H2 formation on graphite at cold collision energies

The Eley-Rideal abstraction of hydrogen atoms on graphitic surfaces at cold collision energies was investigated using a time-dependent wave packet method within the rigid-flat surface approximation, with a focus on hydrogen-deuterium isotopic substitutions. It is found that the marked isotope effect of collinear collisions disappears when the full dimensionality of the problem is taken into account, thereby suggesting that abstraction is less direct than commonly believed and proceeds through glancing rather than head-on collisions. In contrast, a clear isotope effect is observed for "hot-atom" formation, which appears to be strongly favored for heavy projectiles because of their higher density of physisorbed states. Overall, the dynamics is essentially classical and reasonably well described by quasi-classical trajectory methods at all but the lowest energies (≲10 meV). A comparison of the results obtained in the (substrate) adiabatic and diabatic limits suggests that the reaction is only marginally affected by the lattice dynamics, but highlights the importance of including energy dissipation processes in order to accurately describe the internal excitation of the product molecules.

On the PES for the interaction of an H atom with an H chemisorbate on a graphenic platelet

Motivated by the problem of H(2) formation in diffuse clouds of the interstellar medium (ISM), we study the effect of including van der Waals-type corrections in DFT calculations on the entrance PES of the Eley-Rideal reaction H(b) + H(a)-GR → H(b)-H(a) + GR for a graphenic surface GR. The present calculations make use of the PBE-D3 dispersion corrected functional of Grimme et al. (2010) and are carried out on cluster models of graphenic surfaces: C(24)H(12) and C(54)H(18). To assess the soundness of the chosen functional we start by revisiting the H-GR adsorption potential. We find a satisfactory on top physisorption well (43-48 meV) correctly located at an H-GR distance of 3 Å. We then revisit the H(b)-H(a)-GR system using both the PW91 and PBE functionals. Our calculations do not reproduce the tiny potential barrier reported earlier for large H(b)distances from the surface. The barrier in the calculations of Sidis et al. (2000) and Morisset et al. (2003, 2004) has been traced to their previous use of an LSDA + POSTSCF PW91 procedure rather than the genuine PW91 one. The new PBE-D3 PES for the H(b)-H(a)-GR system is reported as a function of the H(b) distance to the surface and its impact parameter relative to the H(a) chemisorbate for the so-called "fixed puckered" ("diabatic" or "sudden") approach. The results are discussed in relation to recent experimental and theoretical work.