Atom-surface potentials by inversion of diffraction data:application to He/MgO(100)

A direct inversion method is used to transform measured intensities of He diffraction from MgO(100) over a wide energy range into the part of the interaction potential that depends on surface structure. This provides the first inversion of atom/surface scattering data. Intensities computed from the inverted potential reproduce the input data to great accuracy. The uniqueness problem of potentials obtained from diffraction experiments is discussed.