Fig. 2: Experimental and theoretical scattering angle and kinetic energy distributions for O(3P) → O(3P) scattering.
From: Spin-dependent reactivity and spin-flipping dynamics in oxygen atom scattering from graphite
a, Discharge source. The experimental kinetic energy and angular distribution of O(3P2), obtained after scattering atomic O (Ei = 0.34 ± 0.05 eV) from HOPG at an incidence angle θi of −20°. b, Triplet PES. The calculated scattering distribution obtained using the triplet PES with an incidence energy of Ei = 0.34 eV and θi of −20°. c, Adiabatic PES. The calculated scattering distribution obtained using the adiabatic PES (Ei = 0.34 eV, θi = −20°). The experimental distribution (a) is consistent with the calculated distribution obtained using the triplet PES (b), but differs from the distribution obtained using the adiabatic PES (c), suggesting that spin transitions are not likely to occur during direct scattering trajectories. d, The average scattered kinetic energy, derived from experiment, is plotted as a function of incidence kinetic energy. The horizontal error bars indicate the FWHM of the incidence energy distribution corresponding to each data point.
