What is it about?
Isothiocyanic acid (HNCS), the simplest isothiocyanate, is known to exist in the interstellar medium since the 1970's. Up to now, our knowledge about its electronic structure and fragmentation processes has been limited to its neutral and singly-ionised form. The present work presents the first experimental and theoretical investigation of the double ionization and subsequent fragmentation of HNCS upon single-photon absorption. Using a coincidence method, we detected mass-separated ionic fragments in correlation with all emitted electrons to gather kinetic energy information. The analysis of potential energy surfaces in the electronic ground and excited states, both in the bound molecular region and near dissociation, provides a comprehensive understanding of the fragmentation processes of gas-phase HNCS$^{2+}$.
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Why is it important?
Our work provides the first experimental and theoretical data on the double ionization and subsequent fragmentation of HNCS exposed to energetic photons, which are known to be present in the interstellar medium, thus filling a knowledge gap.
Perspectives
Writing this article was a great pleasure as it has co-authors with whom I have long standing collaborations. I hope it will become of good interest and use to colleagues in neighbouring areas such as astronomy, possibly stimulating new collaborations.
Raimund Feifel
University of Gothenburg
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This page is a summary of: Structure and fragmentation of doubly ionized HNCS, The Journal of Chemical Physics, July 2024, American Institute of Physics,
DOI: 10.1063/5.0215722.
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