Photoelectron imaging as a probe of the repulsive Coulomb barrier in the photodetachment of antimony tartrate dianions

Abstract

A photoelectron imaging study of the text-book antimony tartrate dianion is presented. The vertical and adiabatic detachment energies are determined to be 2.5±0.1eV and 2.1±0.2eV, respectively. The photoelectron spectra exhibit a typical cut-off due to the presence of the repulsive Coulomb barrier (RCB) and the photoelectron images are highly anisotropic. Using a simple model for the RCB combined with classical molecular dynamics simulations, the photoelectron images were calculated and compared with experiment. Very good overall agreement between the simulations and experiments was achieved when the photodetachment occurs along a specific molecular axis.