Identification and theoretical investigation of the SiO(2+) dication

S. Ben Yaghlane (1) , N. E. Jaidane (1) , K. Franzreb , M. Hochlaf (2)

1 LSAMA - Laboratoire de Spectroscopie Atomique, Moléculaire et Applications
2 MSME - Laboratoire de Modélisation et Simulation Multi Echelle

The gas-phase diatomic dication SiO(2+) has been observed by mass spectrometry and identified by its isotopic abundance. It was produced by energetic, high-current oxygen ((16)O ) ion beam sputtering of a silicon surface and survived a flight time of similar to 10 (5) s. In addition, a detailed theoretical study of SiO2+ has been performed. Our calculations show that SiO(2+) is a metastable species with a large potential barrier towards dissociation (similar to 1.55 eV for the SiO(2+) X ground state). We have derived a set of accurate spectroscopic constants and transition energies for SiO(2+). The adiabatic double ionization energy of SiO is similar to 31 eV. (C) 2009 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.

S. Ben Yaghlane, N. E. Jaidane, K. Franzreb, M. Hochlaf. Identification and theoretical investigation of the SiO(2+) dication. Chemical Physics Letters, 2010, 486 (1-3), pp.16--20. ⟨10.1016/j.cplett.2009.12.081⟩. ⟨hal-00692873⟩