Effect of intramolecular hydrogen bonding on the empty level structure of gas-phase salicylaldehyde:electron affinities and anion yield upon electron impact

The gas-phase empty level structures of γ-butyrolactone, α-hydroxy-γ-butyrolactone, benzaldehyde, 3-hydroxybenzaldehyde and 2-hydroxybenzaldehyde (salicylaldehyde) are studied by means of electron transmission spectroscopy (ETS) and ab initio 6-31G^** calculations. The most stable conformer of salicylaldehyde is characterised by intramolecular hydrogen bonding which causes relevant geometrical variations and, in particular, a lengthening of the C=O double bond. The empty π^* molecular orbitals of salicylaldehyde with large contribution from the carbonyl group are significantly stabilised with respect to their counterparts in benzaldehyde and in the 3-hydroxy derivative. Dissociative electron attachment spectroscopy (DAS) did not reveal formation of negative fragments at low energy, that is, the presence of dissociative decay channels for the π^* resonances observed in the ET spectra. The total anion current measured at the walls of the collision chamber (close to the electron beam), as a function of the incident electron energy, displays signals peaking at zero energy and at about 0.8 eV in benzaldehyde and in the two hydroxy derivatives. However, the only signal detected using a quadrupole mass filter (which requires a lifetime ≥10⁻⁶ s) is a zero energy peak in salicylaldehyde, due to the molecular anion.