Accurate determination of ionization energy of 1, 3-diethoxybenzene via photoionization efficiency spectrum in electrostatic field

Abstract

Ionization energy (IE) is an important characteristic parameter of atoms or molecules. It plays an important role in the process of photophysics and photochemistry. The precise ionization energy is very important for relevant research. Especially, it is very useful for adjusting the signal of the zero-kinetic energy (ZEKE) spectrum, and it also plays a key role in judging the number of rotamers and molecular configuration. In linear time-of-flight mass spectrometers, pulsed electric fields are usually used to drive photo-ionized ions to the detector to produce the photoionization efficiency (PIE) spectrum. The ionization energy is directly obtained from the PIE curve. The uncertainty of the measured IE is usually greater than or equal to ± 10 cm<sup>–1</sup>. The ZEKE spectroscopy is based on the long-lived Rydberg state field ionization technology. In the ZEKE experiments, the laser excites molecules to the Rydberg state and then a pulsed field ionization (PFI) is used for measurement. A peak with high signal-to-noise ratio and narrow linewidth signal appears near the ionization threshold. Therefore, the more accurate ionization energy can be obtained, and the uncertainty of the measured value is about ± 5 cm<sup>–1</sup>. The 1,3-diethoxybenzene is an important benzene derivative, and experiments have confirmed that there are two rotamers, i.e. I (down-up) and III (down-down) in the supersonic molecular beam. In this paper, a linear time-of-flight mass spectrometer is used to measure the photoionization efficiency curves of 1,3-diethoxybenzene in electrostatic fields. From the linear fitting of the ionization energy values measured under different electric fields (Stark effect) to the square root of the field strengths, the precise ionization energy values of rotamer I and rotamer III are determined to be (62419 ± 2) cm<sup>–1</sup> and (63378 ± 2) cm<sup>–1</sup>, respectively. Compared with the accuracies of the values measured by the usual pulsed electric field acceleration mechanism and the ZEKE spectroscopy, the accuracy is improved from about ± 10 and ± 5 to ± 2 cm<sup>–1</sup>, respectively. The physical mechanism, advantages and disadvantages of different methods are analyzed and discussed. The present research results show that the ionization energy measured in the electrostatic field is more accurate, the physical meaning of the measurement process is clear, and the threshold data are easy to collect. This is the first report on the precise ionization energy of 1,3-diethoxybenzene rotamers.