PHOTOION-PAIR PRODUCTION IN HF, DF AND $(HF)_{2}$

$^{a}$A. J. Yencha, A. Hopkirk, J. R. Grover, B-M. Cheng, H. Lefebvre-Brion, and F. Keller, J. Chem. Phys. 103, 2882 (1995)Author Institution: Department of Chemistry, University of British ColumbiaThe dissociation processes of $HF/DF + h\nu \rightarrow H^{+}/D^{+} + F^{-}$ and $(HF)_{2} + h\nu \rightarrow HFH^{+} + F^{-}$ have been studied through single photon excitation with coherent vacuum ultraviolet light. For HF and DF, the laser was scanned around the ion-pair dissociation energies. The spectra demonstrate that the ion-pair production could be greatly enhanced through the coupling between the ion-pair states and the Rydberg states converging to certain levels of $HF^{+}/DF^{+}$. The results from our current high resolution study lead to different conclusions than those resulting from lower resolution synchrotron $experiments^{a}$. For the ion-pair production of $(HF)_{2}$, some preliminary results and possible explanations will be presented