Radiation damage by extensive local water ionization from two-step electron-transfer-mediated decay of solvated ions.

Biomolecular radiation damage is largely mediated by radicals and low-energy electrons formed by water ionization rather than by direct ionization of biomolecules. It was speculated that such an extensive, localized water ionization can be caused by ultrafast processes following excitation by core-level ionization of hydrated metal ions. In this model, ions relax via a cascade of local Auger-Meitner and, importantly, non-local charge- and energy-transfer processes involving the water environment. Here, we experimentally and theoretically show that, for solvated paradigmatic intermediate-mass Al3+ ions, electronic relaxation involves two sequential solute-solvent electron transfer-mediated decay processes. The electron transfer-mediated decay steps correspond to sequential relaxation from Al5+ to Al3+ accompanied by formation of four ionized water molecules and two low-energy electrons. Such charge multiplication and the generated highly reactive species are expected to initiate cascades of radical reactions.

Photoemission from non-polar aromatic molecules in the gas and liquid phase.

The photoelectron spectra of both liquid and gas phase aromatic molecules are reported. The spectra were obtained using a 34.1 eV source produced by high harmonic generation and analysed with the help of high-level ab initio simulations using the reflection principle combined with path integral molecular dynamics simulations accounting for nuclear quantum effects for the gas phase. We demonstrate the suitability of three trimethylbenzenes (1,3,5-trimethylbenzene, 1,2,3-trimethylbenzene and 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene) as a solvent for liquid photoelectron spectroscopy of solute species. We also discuss the electrokinetic charging of a non-polar liquid jet.

Dissociative ionization dynamics of dielectric gas C3F7CN.

Fluoronitrile C3F7CN is a promising candidate for the replacement of SF6 dielectric gas in high-voltage insulation. We present a combined experimental and theoretical study on its ionization dynamics probed in the 0-100 eV energy range. We exploited the total ion collection technique to determine the absolute ionization cross section, mass spectrometry to determine the fragment branching ratios and ab initio nonadiabatic molecular dynamics to simulate the ionization process. The latter two approaches showed the dominating presence of the CF3+ cation over the whole electron energy range. The Binary-Encounter-Bethe (BEB) approximation reproduces experimental cross sections very well and reveals that the ionization from a surprisingly large number of orbitals contributes almost equally to the processes. We show that the initially populated cation excited states undergo an ultrafast internal conversion to the ground state where the dissociation into a single decay channel takes place. Implications for the use of C3F7CN as an insulating material are discussed.