Cooper minima and circular dichroism in photoelectron angular distributions

Creators: Rudolph, H.; Dubs, Richard L.; McKoy, V.

Abstract

We demonstrate that circular dichroism in photoelectron angular distributions (CDAD), resulting from resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI) of an aligned molecular Rydberg state, is a highly sensitive probe of the presence of a Cooper minimum near threshold. To illustrate this application of CDAD, we present the results of ab initio calculations for (1+1') REMPI via the R 21(5.5) branch of the D ^2Σ^+(3pσ) state of NO, where a Cooper minimum is found in l=2 (d wave) of the kπ continuum at a photoelectron kinetic energy of 3.2 eV. The CDAD signal is found to vary rapidly with photoelectron kinetic energy, go through zero, and change sign in the region of the Cooper minimum. This result is predicted by CDAD theory for photoionization from an aligned atomic p orbital.

Additional Information

© 1990 American Institute of Physics. (Received 4 September 1990; accepted 14 September 1990) The authors acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation (Grant No. CHE-8521391) Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Contract No. 87-0039), and the Office of Health and Environmental Research of the U.S. Department of Energy (Grant No. DE-FG03-87ER60513). We also made use of resources of the San Diego SuperComputer Center, which is supported by the National Science Foundation. We would like to express our gratitude to Jeff Stephens for helpful discussions on the physics of molecular Cooper minima, and to Mike White for his continued interest in studies of CDAD. R.L.D. gratefully acknowledges the support under a National Research Council Postdoctoral Research Associateship.

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