Optical differential reflectance was shown to be a viable technique to study surface adsorption and desorption kinetics. Its application to CO on Cu(110) leads to clearly improved results and better understanding of the system in comparison with earlier thermal desorption measurements. © 1996 The American Physical Society.

• Received 9 May 1996

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.54.7701