Abstract
The binding of molecular benzene on clean (field-evaporated) tungsten surfaces at 78 K has been investigated as a function of electric field strength using a new ramped field-desorption technique. The resulting spectra, analogous to total pressure thermal desorption spectra (which do not mass analyze the desorbing species), show a physisorbed structure below 0.36 V/Å which increases continuously in area with increasing benzene coverage, a peak at 0.36 V/Å which grows until a saturation coverage is reached (and is thought to represent a physically adsorbed transition layer between chemisorbed and multiple layer physisorbed benzene at the surface), and a series of poorly resolved chemisorbed peaks (between ?0.38 and 1.13 V/Å) whose detailed shape depends on the local morphology of the surface region being examined. By recording the image of the desorbing species over the narrow field ranges which define these distinct features, the crystallographic behavior of the physisorbed and chemisorbed layers on the surface has been visually determined with angstrom resolution.