Calculations of the energy accommodation coefficient for gas–surface interactions

0301-0104/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier B.V. A doi:10.1016/j.chemphys.2009.12.018 * Corresponding author. Address: Department of Ph son University, Clemson, SC 29634, USA. Tel.: +1 864 0805. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.R. Manso Calculations are carried out for the energy accommodation coefficient at a gas–surface interface using a recently developed classical mechanical theory of atom–surface collisions that includes both direct scattering and trapping–desorption processes in the physisorption well of the interaction potential. Full three-dimensional calculations are compared with the available data for the accommodation of rare gases at a tungsten surface and reasonable agreement is found for the heavier gases for which classical physics is expected to be valid at all measured temperatures. 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.