%0 Journal Article %A Glowacki, David R. %A Rodgers, W. J. %A Shannon, Robin %A Robertson, Struan H. %A Harvey, Jeremy N. %D 2017 %T Supplementary information from Reaction and relaxation at surface hotspots: using molecular dynamics and the energy-grained master equation to describe diamond etching %U https://rs.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Supplementary_information_from_Reaction_and_relaxation_at_surface_hotspots_using_molecular_dynamics_and_the_energy-grained_master_equation_to_describe_diamond_etching/4630096 %R 10.6084/m9.figshare.4630096.v1 %2 https://rs.figshare.com/ndownloader/files/7534756 %K heterogenous chemistry %K reaction dynamics %K molecular dynamics %K statistical mechanics %K chemical vapour deposition %K diamond %X The extent to which vibrational energy transfer dynamics can impact reaction outcomes beyond the gas phase remains an active research question. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are the method of choice for investigating such questions; however, they can be extremely expensive, and therefore it is worth developing cheaper models that are capable of furnishing reasonable results. This paper has two primary aims. First, we investigate the competition between energy relaxation and reaction at ‘hotspots’ that form on the surface of diamond during the chemical vapour deposition process. To explore this, we developed an efficient reactive potential energy surface by fitting an empirical valence bond model to higher level ab initio electronic structure theory. We then ran 160 000 NVE trajectories, and the results are in reasonable agreement with experiment: they suggest that energy dissipation from surface hotspots is complete within a few hundred fs, but that a small fraction of CH3 does in fact undergo dissociation prior to the onset of thermal equilibrium. Second, we developed and tested a general procedure to formulate and solve the energy-grained master equation (EGME) for surface chemistry problems. The procedure we outline splits the system into system/bath components, and then evaluates microcanonical transition state theory rate coefficients in the configuration space of the system atoms. Energy transfer from the system to bath is estimated using linear response theory from a single long MD trajectory, and used to parameterize an energy transfer function which can be input into the EGME. Despite the number of approximations involved, the surface EGME results are in reasonable agreement with the NVE MD simulations, but considerably cheaper. The results are encouraging, because they offer a computationally tractable strategy for investigating non-equilibrium reaction dynamics at surfaces for a broader range of systems. %I The Royal Society