Vibrational relaxation during gas–surface collisions

Abstract
The probability for deactivation of CO2(001) has been found to be 0.22 for collisions with a stainless steel surface, 0.16 for silver, and 0.20 for nickel. The probability for deactivation on the silver surface was invariant with surface temperature in the range from 298 to 473 K. A pulsed CO2 laser was used to excite the CO2, while the population of vibrationally excited molecules was monitored by observing their infrared fluorescence at 4.3 μm.