Theoretical models for description of the gas-solid surface vibrational interactions

The main groups of theoretical methods for description of energy exchange with participation of vibrational degrees of freedom for three types of surface processes — scattering of gas particles from solid surface, vibrational relaxation of adsorbed molecules, as well as processes connected with breaking of a bond in the adsorption complex (surface diffusion, desorption and dissociation of the adsorbates) are briefly reviewed. Most of these methods lead to good correspondence of the theoretical predictions with experimentally determined results for particularly described phenomenon. However, each of the approaches used applies different ways for modeling the interactions in the system and simplifications for obtaining solutions, which makes them hardly applicable (without substantial alternation) for description of other processes taking place on solid surfaces. In the last part of this work, theoretical approaches are presented considering both the interaction between the adsorption bond and surface oscillations, which is substantial for the processes of surface diffusion and desorption and the participation of intramolecular vibrations in the exchange of energy, substantial for heterogeneous catalytic processes on solid catalysts. Different types of limitations in application of these methods are also discussed.