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Abstract

The unimolecular decomposition of internal-energy-selected furan molecular ions has been studied by means of threshold-photoelectron–photoion coincidence spectroscopy. Monochromatic synchrotron radiation was used as the ionisation source, and the molecular ion internal energy was established through the detection of a threshold electron. A pulsed electric field was applied to extract the ions from the interaction region and direct them towards a time-of-flight mass spectrometer. Breakdown curves were measured for photon energies up to 30 eV, and these have allowed appearance energies for a wide range of fragment ions to be determined. In the threshold region the breakdown curves have been measured for various ion residence times by introducing electronic delays between the detection of the threshold electron and the application of the ion extraction field. The breakdown curves have been modelled using the RRKM (Rice, Ramsperger, Kassel and Marcus)/QET (quasi-equilibrium theory) approach, and this has allowed activation energies and transition state geometries to be deduced. The threshold photoelectron spectra of furan-h₄ and furan-d₄ have been measured from the ionisation threshold to 28 eV, and vibrational structure has been observed and assigned in the bands due to the X²A₂, the A²B₁ and the G²A₁ states. Vibrational progressions discernible between 16.2 and 17.3 eV have been attributed to autoionisation from a p-type Rydberg series converging onto the G²A₁ state ionisation threshold.