Publications by Rainer Beck | EPFL Graph Search

Related publications (44)

Vibrationally Promoted Dissociation of Water on Ni(111)

Rainer Beck, Phil Morten Hundt, Maarten Eduard van Reijzen

Water dissociation on transition-metal catalysts is an important step in steam reforming and the water-gas shift reaction. To probe the effect of translational and vibrational activation on this important heterogeneous reaction, we performed state-resolved ...

American Association for the Advancement of Science2014

Quantum state-resolved methane scattering from Ni(111) and NiO(111) by bolometer infrared laser tagging: The effect of surface oxidation

Rainer Beck, Christopher Scott Reilly, Bo-Jung Chen, Patrick Floss

We describe a novel UHV state-to-state molecule/surface scattering apparatus with quan- tum state preparation of the incident molecular beam and angle-resolved quantum state detection of the scattered molecules. State resolved detection is accomplished usi ...

2023

Efficient Stimulated Raman Pumping for Quantum-State Resolved Surface Reactivity Measurements

Thomas Rizzo, Rainer Beck, Plinio Maroni

We describe the use of stimulated Raman pumping in a molecular beam to perform quantum state resolved gas-surface reactivity measurements for molecules prepared in totally symmetric vibrational states. Vibrational states of homonuclear diatomics as well as ...

2006

Bond-Selective and Mode-Specific Dissociation of CH3D and CH2D2 on Pt(111)

Rainer Beck, Phil Morten Hundt, Hirokazu Ueta, Maarten Eduard van Reijzen

Infrared laser excitation of partially deuterated methanes (CH3D and CH2D2) in a molecular beam is used to control their dissociative chemisorption on a Pt(111) single crystal and to determine the quantum state-resolved dissociation probabilities. The excl ...

American Chemical Society2015

Quantum state resolved molecular beam reflectivity measurements: CH4 dissociation on Pt(111)

Rainer Beck, Ana Gutiérrez González, Helen Jane Chadwick

The King and Wells molecular beam reflectivity method has been used for a quantum state resolved study of the dissociative chemisorption of CH4 on Pt(111) at several surface temperatures. Initial sticking coefficients were measured for incident CH4 prepare ...

American Institute of Physics2016

Methylidyne Adsorption on Pt(211) Probed by Reflection Absorption Infrared Spectroscopy (RAIRS)

Rainer Beck, Ana Gutiérrez González, Harmina Vejayan

Methylidyne, CH(ads), adsorbed on a Pt(211) surface and its interaction with chemisorbed hydrogen atoms was studied by reflection absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIRS). Methylidyne was formed on Pt(211) by methane dissociation from a molecular beam foll ...

2022

State-to-state methane-surface scattering as a probe of catalytic activity

Rainer Beck, Maarten Eduard van Reijzen, Jörn Werdecker, Bo-Jung Chen

Quantum state-resolved scattering experiments for methane molecules colliding with a catalytically active nickel surface are compared to scattering from a nickel surface passivated by a single layer of graphene. The vibrational state distribution of the sc ...

2020

Dissociative Sticking Probability of Methane on Pt(110)-(2×1)

Rainer Beck, Ana Gutiérrez González

In this work, we revisit the dissociative sticking of methane on Pt(110)-(2×1) using quasi-classical trajectory (QCT) calculations and supersonic molecular beam (SMB) experiments. Experimentally, we apply the King and Wells method and the reflection absorp ...

2021

The sticking probability of D2O-water on ice: Isotope effects and the inﬂuence of vibrational excitation

Rainer Beck, Régis Bisson, Phil Morten Hundt

The present study measures the sticking probability of heavy water (D2O) on H2O- and on D2O-ice and probes the inﬂuence of selective OD-stretch excitation on D2O sticking on these ices. Molecular beam techniques are combined with infrared laser excitation ...

American Institute of Physics2012

Quantum interference observed in state-resolved molecule-surface scattering

Rainer Beck, Christopher Scott Reilly, Liang Zhang

Although the dynamics of collisions between a molecule and a solid surface are ultimately quantum mechanical, decohering effects owing to the large number of interacting degrees of freedom typically obscure the wavelike nature of these events. However, a p ...

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)2025

Steric Effects in the Chemisorption of Vibrationally Excited Methane on Ni(100)

Rainer Beck, Régis Bisson, Bruce Yoder

Newly available, powerful infrared laser sources enable the preparation of intense molecular beams of quantum-state prepared and aligned molecules for gas/surface reaction dynamics experiments. We present a stereodynamics study of the chemisorption of vibr ...

American Association for the Advancement of Science2010

Quantum-state-resolved reactivity of overtone excited CH4 on Ni(111): Comparing experiment and theory

Rainer Beck, Phil Morten Hundt, Maarten Eduard van Reijzen

Quantum state resolved reactivity measurements probe the role of vibrational symmetry on the vibrational activation of the dissociative chemisorption of CH4 on Ni(111). IR-IR double resonance excitation in a molecular beam was used to prepare CH4 in three ...

American Institute of Physics2017

Quantum state and surface-site-resolved studies of methane chemisorption by vibrational spectroscopies

Rainer Beck, Ana Gutiérrez González

The combination of quantum state-specific reactant preparation by infrared laser pumping with surface-site-resolved detection of chemisorbed reaction products by Reflection Absorption Infrared Spectroscopy (RAIRS) enables highly detailed studies of molecul ...

2020

Infrared spectroscopy of hydrated amino acids in the gas phase: protonated and lithiated valine

Thomas Rizzo, Oleg Boyarkine, Rainer Beck, Anthi Kamariotou

We report here infrared spectra of protonated and lithiated valine with varying degrees of hydration in the gas phase and interpret them with the help of DFT calculations at the B3LYP/6-31++G** level. In both the protonated and lithiated species, our resul ...

2006

Dynamics of methane dissociation on transition metals

Rainer Beck

One of the many contributions of Harold Winters to surface science was his pioneering ultrahigh vacuum study on the kinetics of the technologically important dissociation of CH4 on transition metals in the 1970s. He observed a dramatic activation of the di ...

A V S Amer Inst Physics2017

State-resolved reactivity of CH4 on Pt(110)-(1 x 2): The role of surface orientation and impact site

Rainer Beck, Régis Bisson, Marco Sacchi

The reactivity of methane (CH4) on Pt(110)-(1×2) has been studied by quantum state-resolved surface reactivity measurements. Ground state reaction probabilities, S0(v=0) ~ S0(laser-off), as well as state-resolved reaction probabilities S0(2v3), for CH4 exc ...

2010

CHD3 Dissociation on the Kinked Pt(210) Surface: A Comparison of Experiment and Theory

Rainer Beck, Ana Gutiérrez González, Helen Jane Chadwick

To be able to simulate activated heterogeneously catalyzed reactions on the edge and corner sites of nanoparticles, a method for calculating accurate activation barriers for the reactions is required. We have recently demonstrated that a semiempirical spec ...

2019

Surface-induced vibrational energy redistribution in methane/surface scattering depends on catalytic activity

Rainer Beck, Christopher Scott Reilly, Patrick Floss

Recent state-to-state experiments of methane scattering from Ni(111) and graphene-covered Ni(111) combined with quantum mechanical simulations suggest an intriguing correlation between the surface-induced vibrational energy redistribution (SIVR) during the ...

2023

Highly Efficient Activation of HCl Dissociation on Au(111) via Rotational Preexcitation

Rainer Beck

The probability for dissociation of molecules on metal surfaces, which often controls the rate of industrially important catalytic processes, can depend strongly on how energy is partitioned in the incident molecule. There are many example systems where th ...

2021

State-resolved gas-surface reactivity of methane in the symmetric C-H stretch vibration on Ni(100)

Thomas Rizzo, Rainer Beck, Marco Sacchi, Plinio Maroni, Thanh Tung Dang

The state-resolved reactivity of CH4 in its totally symmetric C-H stretch vibration (nu(1)) has been measured on a Ni(100) surface. Methane molecules were accelerated to kinetic energies of 49 and 63.5 kJ/mol in a molecular beam and vibrationally excited t ...

2005