A comparative laboratory study of soft X-ray-induced ionization and fragmentation of five small PAH cations

Abstract: The interaction between polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) radical cations and X-rays predominantly leads to photofragmentation, a process that strongly depends on PAH size and geometry. In our experiments, five prototypical PAHs were exposed to monochromatic soft X-ray photons with energies in the C K-edge regime. As a function of soft X-ray photon energy, photoion yields were obtained by means of time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The resulting near-edge X-ray absorption mass spectra were interpreted using time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) with a short-range corrected functional. We found that the carbon backbone of anthracene (C H ), pyrene (C H ) and coronene (C H ) can survive soft X-ray absorption, even though mostly intermediate size fragments are formed. In contrast, for hexahydropyrene (C H ) and triphenylene (C H ) molecular survival is not observed and the fragmentation pattern is dominated by small fragments. For a given excitation energy, molecular survival evidently does not simply correlate with PAH size but strongly depends on other PAH properties

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: The European physical journal. D. - 77 (2023) , 181, ISSN: 1434-6079

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Freiburg
• (who): Universität
• (when): 2024
• Creator: Huo, Yining ; Cangahuala, Mónica K. Espinoza ; Zamudio-Bayer, Vicente ; Goulart, Marcelo ; Kubin, Markus ; Timm, Martin ; Lau, J. Tobias ; Issendorff, Bernd von ; Hoekstra, Ronnie ; Faraji, Shirin ; Schlathölter, Thomas

Further information

• DOI: 10.1140/epjd/s10053-023-00763-w
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:25-freidok-2543121
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 14.08.2025, 10:56 AM CEST