The ionisation energy of cyclopentadienone: a photoelectron–photoion coincidence study

Abstract

Imaging photoelectron photoion coincidence (iPEPICO) spectra of cyclopentadienone (C5H4=O and C5D4=O) have been measured at the Swiss Light Source Synchrotron (Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen, Switzerland) at the Vacuum Ultraviolet (VUV) Beamline. Complementary to the photoelectron spectra, photoionisation efficiency curves were measured with tunable VUV radiation at the Chemical Dynamics Beamline at the Advanced Light Source Synchrotron (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA). For both experiments, molecular beams diluted in argon and helium were generated from the vacuum flash pyrolysis of o-phenylene sulphite in a resistively heated microtubular SiC flow reactor. The Franck–Condon profiles and ionisation energies were calculated at the CCSD(T) level of theory, and are in excellent agreement with the observed iPEPICO spectra. The ionisation energies of both cyclopentadienone-d0, IE(C5H4=O), and cyclopentadienone-d4, IE(C5D4=O), were observed to be the same: 9.41 ± 0.01 eV. The mass-selected threshold photoelectron spectrum (ms-TPES) of cyclopentadienone reveals that the C=C stretch in the ground state of the cation is excited upon ionisation, supporting computational evidence that the ground state of the cation is 2A2, and is in agreement with previous studies. However, the previously reported ionisation potential has been improved considerably in this work. In addition, since o-benzoquinone (o-O=C6H4=O and o-O=C6D4=O) is also produced in this process, its ms-TPES has been recorded. From the iPEPICO and photoionisation efficiency spectra, we infer an adiabatic ionisation energy of IE(o-O=C6H4=O) = 9.3 ± 0.1 eV, but the rather structureless spectrum indicates a strong change in geometry upon ionisation making this value less reliable.