Abstract
The electronic states of CO molecularly adsorbed (1000 Langmuirs exposure) on Mo (110) are studied by metastable helium atom de-excitation spectroscopy (MDS) founded on the metastable-surface interaction model described by Hagstrum. The spectrum obtained after deconvolution, compared with the direct photoemission spectrum, shows a density-of-states profile corresponding to this adsorption and suggests a possible mechanism for the CO-Mo bond involving the 5 sigma +1 pi and 2 pi * orbitals of the CO molecule. The results obtained show that MDS is very well suited to research on the electronic properties of surfaces.