Transport of adsorbates at metal surfaces: from thermal migration to hot precursors

Theoretical aspects and evolution of surface diffusion studies are discussed with an emphasis on non-metallic adsorbates at metal surfaces. A survey of the existing literature is presented with the main experimental results tabulated. (The tables and their updates are available online at http://ipent.epfl.ch/gr_kern/jv_barth/SD_tables.html) Conception, theoretical and experimental work on transient mobility in the adsorption of gases on metal surfaces are summarized.