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Publications in Scientific Journals:

R. Wilhelm, E. Gruber, J. Schwestka, R. Kozubek, T. Madeira, J. Marques, J. Kobus, A. Krasheninnikov, M. Schleberger, F. Aumayr:
"Interatomic Coulombic Decay - the mechanism for rapid de-excitation of hollow atoms";
Physical Review Letters, 119 (2017), 103401; 1 - 6.



English abstract:
The impact of a highly charged ion onto a solid gives rise to charge exchange between the ion and target
atoms, so that a slow ion gets neutralized in the vicinity of the surface. Using highly charged Ar and Xe ions
and the surface-only material graphene as a target, we show that the neutralization and deexcitation of the
ions proceeds on a sub-10 fs time scale. We further demonstrate that a multiple Interatomic Coulombic
Decay (ICD) model can describe the observed ultrafast deexcitation. Other deexcitation mechanisms
involving nonradiative decay and quasimolecular orbital formation during the impact are not important, as
follows from the comparison of our experimental data with the results of first-principles calculations. Our
method also enables the estimation of ICD rates directly.


"Official" electronic version of the publication (accessed through its Digital Object Identifier - DOI)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.103401


Created from the Publication Database of the Vienna University of Technology.