ABSTRACT
The study of desorption processes initiated by electronic excitation instead of thermal excitation represented a departure from conventional research activities at the time and provided a special personal fascination for the authors which has to the present remained strong. The desorption of adsorbed species by nonthermal processes became a new focus of the work starting about 1965. As a consequence of their work, Madey and Yates were invited by P. A. Redhead to write a critical review of what was being done worldwide in the area of electron stimulated desorption, a surface phenomenon which had already received the acronym ESD. ESD and Desorption Induced by Electronic Transitions (DIET) processes impact a host of scientific issues, including structure and dynamics of adsorbed molecules, quantum state-resolved desorption, dynamics of charge transfer, and surface photochemistry. DIET processes provide insights into the science and technology of radiation damage, which affects quantitative surface analysis using electron and photon beams and molecular synthesis in interstellar space.
