Determination of absolute photoionization cross-sections of alkanes and cyclo-alkanes

Absolute photoionization and dissociative photoionization cross‐sections of eleven n‐alkanes (n‐pentane, n‐hexane, n‐heptane, n‐nonane, n‐decane, n‐undecane, n‐dodecane, n‐tridecane, n‐tetradecane, n‐pentadecane and n‐hexadecane), three cyclo‐alkanes (cyclopentane, methylcyclohexane and trans‐decahydronaphthalene) and iso‐octane were measured for photon energies from the ionization thresholds to 11.5 eV. The measurements were performed with the binary‐liquid‐mixture method utilizing the photoionization cross‐sections of benzene as a calibration standard. The ionization energies of n‐alkanes and cyclo‐alkanes were also calculated at the B3P86/6‐31 + +G(d,p) level and by the G3B3 method. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.