Ferrari P, Janssens E, Lievens P, Hansen K. Thermal radiation and fragmentation pathways of photo-excited silicon clusters.
J Chem Phys 2015;
143:224313. [PMID:
26671381 DOI:
10.1063/1.4936917]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
The fragmentation of laser heated silicon clusters was studied by time-of-flight mass spectrometry. For Si(n)(+) (n = 5-19, 21), the lowest energy fragmentation pathways were identified as the metastable decay channel occurring after the primary acceleration of the ions. The radiative cooling of laser excited Si(n)(+) (n = 5-9, 11, and 13) was quantified via its quenching effect on the amount of metastable fragmentation. The quenching varied strongly with cluster size, from no observable amount for Si7(+) to a cooling constant of 3 ⋅ 10(5) s(-1) for Si13(+). In addition, based on the observed fragmentation channels, the ionization energies and the relative binding energies of the clusters were partially ordered, and several ionization energies have been bracketed more precisely.
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