Electron- and photon-stimulated desorption as hydrogen probes

Recent results from electron-stimulated desorption (ESD) are presented along with even more recently demonstrated photon-stimulated desorption (PSD) which show that these techniques are powerful and insightful probes of atomic and molecular species on surfaces and specifically are very sensitive to hydrogen. As such they are valuable complements to the burgeoning array of electronic probes of surfaces. More importantly, they open the way for a direct study of hydrogen and its singularly important role in surface chemistry. While these techniques are primarily surface probes, it is demonstrated that ion-milling techniques can be used to determine near surface hydrogen profiles