Femtosecond laser desorption of CO from the Pt(111) surface

We report the first study of femtosecond desorption of CO from Pt(111), using 800 nm laser pulses with durations from 125 fs to 1.5 ps. The results for the CO/Pt system are qualitatively similar to other diatomic molecule systems previously studied and can be understood using the electronic friction model. We also studied the CO desorption yield using frequency-chirped laser pulses of the same pulse duration. With the chirping magnitude of ca. 1.5% in our experiment we did not observe any difference between positive and negative chirping. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.