Observation of Interference Effects in (e, 2e) Electron Momentum Spectroscopy of SF6

Abstract

Two-dimensional electron density map (2D map) of binding energy and relative azimuthal angle (i.e., momentum) for the outer-valence molecular orbitals of SF6 has been measured by a highly sensitive electron momentum spectrometer with noncoplanar symmetric geometry at the impact energy of 1.2 keV plus binding energy. The experimental electron momentum profiles for the relevant molecular orbitals have been extracted from the 2D map and interpreted on the basis of the quantitative calculations using the density functional theory with B3LYP hybrid functional. For the outermost F2p nonbonding orbitals of SF6, the interference patterns are clearly observed in the ratios of the electron momentum profiles of molecular orbitals to that of atomic F2p orbital.