Chemical bond formation showing a transition from physisorption to chemisorption

Imaging a chemisorption process At low temperatures, a molecule may adsorb to a surface only through weak forces (physisorption), and only upon heating and overcoming an energetic barrier does it form a strong covalent bond (chemisorption). Huber et al. imaged this transition for an atomic force microscopy tip terminating in a carbon monoxide molecule. Although the oxygen atom of the tip is normally considered to act like a rare gas atom, interacting only through van der Waals interactions, at short distances directly above a transition metal atom, it transitions to a strongly interacting chemisorption state. Science , this issue p. 235