Experimental auger electron spectrum of ammonia

The first electron excited Auger electron spectrum for gas-phase ammonia has been obtained and is compared with an existing theoretical prediction. Decomposition of the spectrum using a gaussian approximation reveals close agreement in both intensity and energy for the higher energy components provided the theoretical data is shifted toward lower energies by ≈ 2.7 eV. As the transitions involve progressively deeper final state levels there is a general trend of increasing widths and increasing discrepancy towards lower energy with respect to their predicted positions. Such behavior has been seen in other experimental—theoretical comparisons of gas-phase Auger results and while the variation in widths is interpreted in terms of transitions to a manifold of final state vibrational levels, the nature of the differential shift in the lower energy components is unclear.