Recent Advances in Studies of the Electronic Decay of Core Excited States in Small Molecules

Abstract

Electronic decay spectra of neutral core excited states give new insight into charge transfer, screening and electron correlation effects in atoms, molecules and solids. The basic deacy mechanism is an Auger decay but the transition occurs in a natural rather than in a core ionized system. The study of the electronic deacy of neutral core excited states yields information that is complementary to that obtained in both photoemission and Auger spectroscopy. Using synchrotron radiation as the excitation source, deexcitation spectroscopy has been developed over the past decade. Here, these developements are briefly reviewed and prospects, opened up by the availability of high resolution, high intensity undulator radiation, are highlighted using spectra for N2 as an example.