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Abstract

UV‐laser irradiation (hν=6.4 eV and 5.0 eV) of the water bilayer adsorbed on a Pd(111) surface leads to molecular desorption and to conversion of the adsorbed state as manifested in thermal desorption spectra. The latter effect is attributed to photodissociation of water on the surface. Time‐of‐flight measurements show that water molecules desorb with a translational energy of about 600 K for both photon energies indicating a nonthermal process. While desorption is largely suppressed with adsorbed multilayers, conversion within the first layer still proceeds. The dependence of the desorption yield on angle of incidence and polarization of the light reveals substrate excitations as the dominant primary step. A strong variation of cross sections with isotopic substitution is observed. This is interpreted as evidence for the operation of a mechanism involving excitation onto an isotope‐independent excited potential energy surface followed by rapid deexcitation to the ground state so that, of the total number of species excited, only a small mass dependent fraction actually fragments or desorbs.