Issue 3, 2022

Resonant two-photon photoelectron imaging and adiabatic detachment processes from bound vibrational levels of dipole-bound states

Abstract

Anions cannot have Rydberg states, but anions with polar neutral cores can support highly diffuse dipole-bound states (DBSs) as a class of interesting electronically excited states below the electron detachment threshold. The binding energies of DBSs are extremely small, ranging from a few to few hundred wavenumbers and generally cannot support bound vibrational levels below the detachment threshold. Thus, vibrational excitations in the DBS are usually above the electron detachment threshold and they have been used to conduct resonant photoelectron spectroscopy, which is dominated by state-specific autodetachment. Here we report an investigation of a cryogenically-cooled complex anion, the enantiopure (R)-(−)-1-(9-anthryl)-2,2,2-trifluoroethanolate (R-TFAE). The neutral R-TFAE radical is relatively complex and highly polar with a non-planar structure (C1 symmetry). Photodetachment spectroscopy reveals a DBS 209 cm−1 below the detachment threshold of R-TFAE and seven bound and eight above-threshold vibrational levels of the DBS. Resonant two-photon detachment (R2PD) via the bound vibrational levels of the DBS exhibits strictly adiabatic photodetachment behaviors by the second photon, in which the vibrational energies in the DBS are carried to the neutral final states, because of the parallel potential energy surfaces of the DBS and the corresponding neutral ground electronic state. Relaxation processes from the bound DBS levels to the ground and low-lying electronically excited states of R-TFAE are also observed in the R2PD photoelectron spectra. The combination of photodetachment and resonant photoelectron spectroscopy yields frequencies for eight vibrational modes of the R-TFAE radical.

Graphical abstract: Resonant two-photon photoelectron imaging and adiabatic detachment processes from bound vibrational levels of dipole-bound states

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
14 11 2021
Accepted
20 12 2021
First published
20 12 2021

Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2022,24, 1380-1389

Author version available

Resonant two-photon photoelectron imaging and adiabatic detachment processes from bound vibrational levels of dipole-bound states

D. Yuan, Y. Zhang, C. Qian and L. Wang, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2022, 24, 1380 DOI: 10.1039/D1CP05219E

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements