Electron ionization of acetylene

Relative partial ionization cross sections and precursor specific relative partial ionization cross sections for fragment ions formed by electron ionization of C2H2 have been measured using time-of-flight mass spectrometry coupled with a 2D ion-ion coincidence technique. We report data for the formation of H+, H+2, C2+, C+/C2+ 2, CH+/C2H+2, CH+2, C+2, and C2H+ relative to the formation of C2H+2, as a function of ionizing electron energy from 30-200 eV. While excellent agreement is found between our data and one set of previously published absolute partial ionization cross sections, some discrepancies exist between the results presented here and two other recent determinations of these absolute partial ionization cross sections. We attribute these differences to the loss of some translationally energetic fragment ions in these earlier studies. Our relative precursor-specific partial ionization cross sections enable us, for the first time, to quantify the contribution to the yield of each fragment ion from single, double, and triple ionization. Analysis shows that at 50 eV double ionization contributes 2% to the total ion yield, increasing to over 10% at an ionizing energy of 100 eV. From our ion-ion coincidence data, we have derived branching ratios for charge separating dissociations of the acetylene dication. Comparison of our data to recent ab initio/RRKM calculations suggest that close to the double ionization potential C2H2+2 dissociates predominantly on the ground triplet potential energy surface (3Sigma*g) with a much smaller contribution from dissociation via the lowest singlet potential energy surface (1Delta g). Measurements of the kinetic energy released in the fragmentation reactions of C2H2+2 have been used to obtain precursor state energies for the formation of product ion pairs, and are shown to be in good agreement with available experimental data and with theory.