Z. Ye et P. Piercy, EFFECTS OF SUBSTRATE ANHARMONICITY ON THE VIBRATIONAL LINE-SHAPES OF ADSORBED MOLECULES, Physical review. B, Condensed matter, 47(15), 1993, pp. 9797-9803
The vibrational line shape of a molecule adsorbed at a crystal surface
is influenced by its interaction with phonons of the substrate. While
the vibrational line shift and broadening induced by an anharmonic ad
sorption potential have received considerable attention in the past, i
n this paper we show that the anharmonicity of the interatomic bonds i
n the substrate itself can also play a major role in determining the t
emperature-dependent line-shape parameters of an adsorbed molecule. Wi
th a nonperturbative treatment of the bilinear interaction between the
admolecule and substrate, the anharmonicity of the crystal potential
is shown to couple to the localized, molecular vibration. This is demo
nstrated with a simple model calculation, in which only nearest-neighb
or interactions between the admolecule and substrate atoms are include
d. However, the formulas derived here may be readily extended to inclu
de other physical features. Explicit calculations of the frequency shi
ft and linewidth of the perpendicular, admolecule-surface vibrational
mode are presented for the adsorption systems CO/Pt(111) and CO/Ni(100
), respectively, and found to compare favorably with experimental data
in the literature.