High resolution vacuum ultraviolet pulsed field ionization photoelectron band for OCS+(X 2Π): An experimental and theoretical study

The vacuum ultraviolet pulsed field ionization photoelectron (PFI-PE) band for OCS+(X 2Π) in the energy region of 11.09–11.87 eV has been measured using high resolution monochromatized synchrotron radiation. The ionization energies (IEs) for the formation of the (0,0,0) X 2Π3/2 and (0,0,0) 2Π1/2 states of OCS+ are determined to be 11.1831±0.0005 and 11.2286±0.0005 eV, respectively, yielding a value of 367±1.2 cm−1 for the spin–orbit splitting. Using the internally contracted multireference configuration interaction approach, three-dimensional potential energy functions (PEFs) for the OCS+(X 2Π) state have been generated and used in the variational Renner–Teller calculations of the vibronic states. The energies of all vibronic states (J=P) for J=1/2, 3/2, 5/2, and 7/2 have been computed in the energy range of ≈4000 cm−1 above the IE[OCS+(X 2Π3/2)] for the assignment of the experimental spectrum. By a minor modification of the ab initio PEFs, good correlations are found between the experimental and theoretical Renner–Teller structures. Similar to the PFI-PE bands for CO2+(X 2Πg) and CS2+(X 2Πg), weak transitions have been detected in the PFI-PE band for OCS+(X 2Π), which are forbidden in the Franck–Condon approximation. The nonvanishing single-photon ionization cross sections involving the excitation of the bending vibrational modes of OCS+, CO2+, and CS2+, in their ground electronic states are attributed to the symmetries of the geometry-dependent electronic transition dipole operator components.