  We study the electron dynamics at a monocrystalline Pd(111) surface with
stepped vicinal nanostructures modeled in a simple Kronig-Penney scheme. The
unoccupied bands of the surface are resonantly excited \textit{via} the
resonant charge transfer (RCT) interaction of the surface with a hydrogen anion
reflected at grazing angles. The interaction dynamics is simulated numerically
in a quantum mechanical wave packet propagation approach. Visualization of the
wave packet density shows that, when the electron is transferred to the metal,
the surface and image subband states are the most likely locations of the
electron as it evolves through the superlattice. The survival probability of
the interacting ion exhibits strong modulations as a function of the
vicinal-terrace size and shows peaks at those energies that access the image
state subband dispersions. A simple square well model producing standing waves
between the steps on the surface suggests the application of such
ion-scattering at shallow angles to map electronic substructures in vicinal
surfaces. The work also serves as the first proof-of-principle in the utility
of our computational method to address, via RCT, surfaces with nanometric
patterns.
