A generalized Chudley-Elliott vibration-jump model in activated atom surface diffusion

TL;DR

This paper develops a generalized model for activated atom surface diffusion that incorporates vibrational coupling and inelastic effects, providing a more comprehensive understanding of atomic motion on surfaces.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized Chudley-Elliott expression accounting for vibrational coupling and inelastic processes in surface diffusion.

Findings

Derived a generalized diffusion expression including vibrational effects

Quantified inelastic contributions to scattering peak width

Applicable within the Gaussian approximation at low coverage

Abstract

Here the authors provide a generalized Chudley-Elliott expression for activated atom surface diffusion which takes into account the coupling between both low-frequency vibrational motion (namely, the frustrated translational modes) and diffusion. This expression is derived within the Gaussian approximation framework for the intermediate scattering function at low coverage. Moreover, inelastic contributions (arising from creation and annihilation processes) to the full width at half maximum of the quasi-elastic peak are also obtained.