Auger Decay Of Excited Atoms Near Metal-Surfaces

Excited atomic particles couple to the elementary excitation modes of a surface as, for instance, surface plasmons or electron-hole pair excitations. Such coupling may result in a nonradiative Auger-type deexcitation of the atom. Particle-hole pair and surface plasmon assisted Auger decay (AD) of atomic p to s levels have been studied for atoms in front of a metal surface. Based on the self-energy formalism and making use of recent results of the dielectric linear response theory AD rates are estimated as a function of the particle surface distance and the particle velocity parallel to the surface plane. It turns out that the AD process can be rather efficient depending, however, on the electronic properties of the collision system under consideration.