Plasmon Mechanism for the Energy Loss, Dissociation, and Orientation of Fast Ions Excited by Surface-Grazing Collisions

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Abstract
An interaction mechanism is proposed for the inelastic, grazing-incidence scattering of fast ions by metal surfaces which involves coupling of the ion multipoles with surface plasmons. The monopole-plasmon coupling governs the energy-loss spectrum, whereas the higher-multipole interactions raise the ion into electronic excited states. The proposed mechanism is very efficient in dissociating unstable excited molecular ions and in producing atomic excited states with a high degree of orientation.