The research, in the general area of Analytical and Surface Chemistry, focuses on surface processes that are induced by collisions of gas particles with surface bound species. The work addresses the important "pressure gap" which attempts to relate chemistry at ultra-high vacuum and low pressures to real situations at high pressure. This type of investigation is needed if surface science studies are to impact many important applications. The current studies of dissociative chemisorption of adsorbates will be extended to examine previously undocumented collision induced surface processes. Collision induced dissociative chemisorption will be developed as a method to probe the reaction coordinate for thermal dissociation of adsorbates and as a tool to synthesize novel adsorbates. Mechanisms for these processes will be examined. Molecular beam techniques will be coupled with high resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy for these studies, and this spectroscopy will also be developed as a probe for subsurface and bulk vibrations.
