Measurement of electron affinity of iridium atom and photoelectron angular distributions of iridium anion

Abstract

The latest electron affinity value of an iridium atom is 1.564 36(15) eV, determined via a method based on the Wigner threshold law by Bilodeau and co-workers. However, they observed a significant deviation from the Wigner threshold law in the threshold photodetachment experiment. To address this dilemma, we conducted high-resolution photoelectron spectroscopy of Ir- via the slow-electron velocity-map imaging method in combination with an ion trap. The electron affinity of Ir was measured to be 12 614.97(9) cm-1 or 1.564 057(11) eV. We find that the Wigner threshold law is still valid for the threshold photodetachment of Ir- through a p-wave fitting of the photodetachment channel Ir-5d86s23F4→Ir5d86sb4F9/2. The photoelectron angular distributions of photodetachment channels Ir-5d86s23F4→Ir5d76s2a4F9/2 and Ir-5d86s23F4→Ir5d86sb4F9/2 were also investigated. The behavior of anisotropy parameter β indicates a strong interaction between the two channels. Moreover, the energy level 3P2 of Ir-, which was not observed in the previous works, was experimentally determined to be 4163.24(16) cm-1 above the ground state.