ABSTRACT

This chapter describes the National Bureau of Standards’ Laser-Excited Hot-Electron Induced Desorption, relating the context in which the publication appeared, its impact on science, technology, and the general public, and brief details about the lives and work of the author. Laser-excited hot electrons produced within the solid are inelastically scattered from the surface chemical system via resonance formation of a temporary negative ion. This picture has become a standard paradigm for modeling, and hence understanding, almost all hot-electron-induced molecular processes at surfaces involving not only laser excitation, but also Scanning Tunneling Microscope-, tunnel junction-, and electrochemically-produced hot electrons. For this reason among others, the consequences of this coupled theoretical and experimental research are expected to have an active and lasting impact on the understanding and control of many of the most important electron-induced surface processes of chemical significance.