Internal Energy of Heterogeneous Reaction Products: Nitrogen-Atom Recombination on Iron

Abstract

Electron-beam-induced fluorescence has been used to measure the vibrational energy of nitrogen molecules desorbing from a polycrystalline iron surface, following atomic permeation and recombination on the iron surface. The vibrational temperature of the desorbing nitrogen is found to be significantly greater than the temperature of the iron surface, indicating that a fraction of the nitrogen-atom recombination energy remains with the desorbing nitrogen molecule as internal excitation.