Effect of fluoro substitution on the fragmentation of the K‐shell excited/ionized pyridine studied by electron impact

Fragmentation of the pyridine ring followed by K‐shell excitation/ionization has been studied with 2‐fluoropyridine (2FPy) by electron impact. Ab initio molecular orbital (MO) calculations were also carried out to investigate the electronic states correlating with specific fragment ions. The fragment ions are produced characteristically at the N 1s edge, while the spectra observed at the F 1s and C 1s edges exhibit a small difference from that at the valence ionization. The production of the C 4 H 2 + , C 4 H 3 + and C 4 H 2 F + ions indicates that the cleavage of the NC6 and C2C3 bonds or the NC2 and C5C6 bonds is likely to occur after the N 1s excitation/ionization. Ab initio MO calculations indicate that the former fission is likely to proceed through the n N 1 π 2 1 π 3 2 and n N 0 π 2 2 π 3 2 excited states of the parent molecular dication. On the other hand, the breakage of the NC2 and C4C5 bonds, which specifically proceeds at the N 1s edge for 2‐methylpyridine, does not occur for 2FPy. The present calculation reveals that the products of this channel are unstable by the electronegativity of fluorine and that the relative energy of the Auger‐final states of 2FPy is lowered by the reorganization and electron correlation effects. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.