Mason Jarrett L, Harb Hassan, Taka Ali Abou, McMahon Abbey J, Huizenga Caleb D, Corzo Hector, Hratchian Hrant P, Jarrold Caroline Chick
Department of Chemistry, Indiana University, 800 E. Kirkwood Avenue, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, United States.
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, University of California, Merced, 5200 North Lake Road, Merced, California 95343, United States.
J Phys Chem A. 2021 Jan 28;125(3):857-866. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpca.0c11002. Epub 2021 Jan 19.
Photoelectron spectra of GdO obtained with photon energies ranging from 2.033 to 3.495 eV exhibit numerous close-lying neutral states with photon-energy-dependent relative intensities. Transitions to these states, which fall within the electron binding energy window of 0.9 and 1.6 eV, are attributed to one- or two-electron transitions to the ground and low-lying excited neutral states. An additional, similar manifold of electronic states is observed in an electron binding energy window of 2.1-2.8 eV, which cannot be assigned to any simple one-electron transitions. This study expands on previous work on the SmO triatomic, which has a more complex electronic structure because of the 4f subshell occupancy of each Sm center. Because of the simpler electronic structure from the half-filled 4f subshell occupancy in GdO and GdO, the numerous close-lying transitions observed in the spectra are better resolved, allowing a more detailed view of the changes in relative intensities of individual transitions with photon energy. With supporting calculations on numerous possible close-lying electronic states, we suggest a potential description of the strong photoelectron-valence electron interactions that may result in the photon-energy-dependent changes in the observed spectra.
