Stochastic Description of Activated Surface Diffusion with Interacting Adsorbates

Abstract

Activated surface diffusion on metal surfaces is receiving much attention both experimentally and theoretically. One of the main theoretical problems in this field is to explain the line-shape broadening observed when the surface coverage is increased. Recently, we have proposed a fully stochastic model, the interacting single adsorbate (ISA) model, aimed at explaining and understanding this type of experiments, which essentially consists of considering the classical Langevin formulation with two types of noise forces: (i) a Gaussian white noise accounting for the substrate friction, and (ii) a shot noise simulating the interacting adsorbates at different coverages. No interaction potential between adsorbates is included because any trace of microscopic interaction seems to be wiped out in a Markovian regime. This model describes in a good approximation, and at a very low computational cost, the line-shape broadening observed experimentally. Furthermore, its mathematical simplicity also allows to derive some analytical expressions which are of much help in the interpretation of the physics underlying surface diffusion processes.