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Updated: Jul 13, 2026

Spatial Separation of Molecular Conformers and Clusters
Published on: January 9, 2014
Single photon ionization of hydrogen bonded clusters with a soft x-ray laser: (HCOOH)x and (HCOOH)y(H2O)z
S Heinbuch1, F Dong, J J Rocca
1Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Colorado State University, For Collins, Colorado 80523, USA.
Abstract:
Pure, neutral formic acid (HCOOH)n+1 clusters and mixed (HCOOH)(H2O) clusters are investigated employing time of flight mass spectroscopy and single photon ionization at 26.5 eV using a very compact, capillary discharge, soft x-ray laser. During the ionization process, neutral clusters suffer little fragmentation because almost all excess energy above the vertical ionization energy is taken away by the photoelectron, leaving only a small part of the photon energy deposited into the (HCOOH)n+1+ cluster. The vertical ionization energy minus the adiabatic ionization energy is enough excess energy in the clusters to surmount the proton transfer energy barrier and induce the reaction (HCOOH)n+1+-->(HCOOH)nH+ +HCOO making the protonated (HCOOH)nH+ series dominant in all data obtained. The distribution of pure (HCOOH)nH+ clusters is dependent on experimental conditions. Under certain conditions, a magic number is found at n=5. Metastable dissociation rate constants of (HCOOH)nH+ are measured in the range (0.1-0.8)x10(4) s(-1) for cluster sizes 4
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