THE ORIGINS OF MULTIPLE BANDS IN THE INFRARED-SPECTRA OF CARBON-MONOXIDE ADSORBED ON METAL-SURFACES

We model CO molecules adsorbed on a metal surface as a system of coupled oscillators and analyze their vibrations by determining the normal modes of the system. The frequency of a CO molecule (linearly bonded to a surface atom) before coupling depends of the coordination number of the metal atom to which it is attached. The focus of this paper is to use the results of these calculations and of the spectra which they explain, to develop an intuitive interpretation of the various bands that occur in the infrared spectrum of a group CO molecules, linearly bonded to atoms on a metal surface.