Coulomb Dissociation of Nanoparticles Grazing along Organic Surfaces

A Coulomb dissociation model is presented for molecular nanoparticles, e.g. nanoclusters consisting of identical atoms or small molecules. These nanoparticles graze with velocities less than the Bohr velocity (10⁸ cm/s) along an organic surface at atomic distances. The surface molecules contain IR-antennas, which consist of periodically located identical diatomic valence bonds with significant dipole momenta, e.g. hydrocarbon chains like (CH₂)_n. Here, we analyse the Coulomb interaction of these surface molecules with grazing nanoparticles, which do not contain any IR-antennas, e.g. fullerene molecules. Provided that the grazing velocity is in the range of and the minimum distance of the grazing nanoparticles to the surface is approximately 2 Å, the IR-antennas of the interacting surface molecules will collect vibrational energy quanta, the so-called excimols. The number of excimols accumulated during the interaction time of at least 1 ps increases with the number of dipoles in the IR-antennas. Excimol energy can be transmitted back to the grazing nanoparticle by a ps-photon flux, which is estimated intense enough to induce multi-ionization of nanoparticle constituents. The resulting charges inside the nanoparticles cause high Coulomb repulsion forces, which will be able to promptly dissociate them.