Cationic and anionic states of CF, CCl, SiF and SiCl. Some new information derived using translational energy spectroscopy

Translational-energy spectroscopy was applied to collisional-excitation and charge-inversion reactions of CF⁺, CCl⁺, SiF⁺ and SiCl⁺ in order to gain energetic and bond-length information about the anionic and excited-cationic states of the title molecules. The excitation spectra revealed that the ã³Π state, known in CCl⁺ and SiCl⁺, has a term energy of 4.85 ± 0.15 eV in CF⁺ and 4.70 ± 0.20 eV in SiF⁺, while the 1¹Π state, known in CCl⁺, is not below the dissociation threshold in CF⁺, SiF⁺ and SiCl⁺. These data, and bond-length estimates for the ã³Π states, are consistent with documented ab initio predictions except for r_e of CF⁺(ã³Π) which seems to be larger than 1.21 Å. Charge-inversion spectra indicated that beams of monohalide cations formed from the tetrahalides, contained substantial proportions of ã³Π-state ions, and, in the case of CCl, SiF and SiCl, the broadness of spectral peaks was taken as evidence for the stability of the ã¹Δ-state anion. Adiabatic electron affinities were deduced to be 0.49 ± 0.15 eV, 0.89 ± 0.20 eV, 1.34 ± 0.30 eV and 1.40 ± 0.30 eV for the title molecules, respectively.