Plasmon excitation in valence shell photoelectron spectroscopy for PAHs

The photon energy dependence of photoelectron spectra (PES) for two members of the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) family namely pyrene and fluorene is studied in FUV regime (15 - 40 eV) using high-resolution synchrotron photoelectron spectrometer. The difference in outer (? dominated) and inner (? dominated) valence relative photoelectron emission cross sections as a function of photon energy identifies the region of plasmon excitation (~ 15-27 eV). This excitation mode is present in the same region for both the molecule irrespective of the difference in their structure and symmetry. The feature is observed to be independent of the details of the molecular orbital associated with the outgoing electron. The results are in contradiction to the observed in benzene for inner valence bands. With the help of OVGF/cc-pVDZ calculations, the experimental bands are assigned as per their binding energy and symmetry. The first ionization potentials are estimated to be 7.436 ± 0.015 and 7.944 ± 0.055 eV for pyrene and fluorene, respectively.