Molecular orbital momentum distributions and binding energies for H2O using an electron impact coincidence spectrometer

The construction and operation of an instrument which uses the techniques of coincidence counting and electron impact spectroscopy is reported for the study of molecular ionization at large momentum transfer in which the two outgoing electrons are detected at 45° to the incident beam. Variation of the incident energy provides binding-energy spectra for Xe, CH₄ and H₂O up to 45 eV. Alternatively variation of the azimuthal angle (symmetric, non-coplanar geometry) gives a measure of the electron momentum distribution for any selected orbital in the binding-energy spectrum. Momentum distributions for the four valence orbitals of H₂O are compared with various wavefunctions from the literature.