Band Structure Effects on the Charge Exchange Processes in H+ Colliding with a Cu(111) Surface

The low energy ion scattering (LEIS) technique was used to experimentally determine the formation of positive and negative ions in the scattering of protons by a Cu(111) surface for a large scattering angle in the backscattering configuration and a wide range of incoming energies (2 to 8keV). Two different collisional geometries were analyzed for a 135° fixed scattering angle: 45°/90° and 67.5°/67.5° incoming/exit angles measured with respect to the target surface. The total fraction of backscattered ions ranges from 10% to 25% and a peculiarly high yield of negative ions, which always exceeds that of positive ions, was detected for the whole energy range analyzed. A strong dependence of the measured ion fractions with the geometrical conditions was experimentally found. On the theoretical side, a first principles quantum-mechanical formalism that takes into account the three possible final charge states of the H+ in a correlated way and the fine details of the band structure of Cu(111) surface, was appli...