Chemisorptive Luminescence

Abstract

The chemisorption of each of the gases oxygen, nitric oxide, and carbon monoxide on a clean, polycrystalline tungsten ribbon is accompanied by a faint luminescence in the visible. This effect is not observed during the chemisorptions of carbon dioxide, hydrogen bromide, hydrogen, or nitrogen. The effect, when it does occur, is a small one, corresponding to photon emission for one out of every 10⁹ CO or NO adsorptions and one out of every 10⁷ O₂ adsorptions. The decay of this self‐excited luminescence does not follow first‐order kinetics; it persists for many seconds with hyperbolic time dependence. No luminescent behavior is observed during electrochemical adsorption and desorption of oxygen.