Absolute photoabsorption oscillator strengths by electron energy loss methods: the valence and S 2p and 2s inner shells of sulphur dioxide in the discrete and continuum regions (3.5–260 eV) Original Research Article

Absolute photoabsorption oscillator strengths (cross-sections) for the valence shell discrete and continuum regions of sulphur dioxide from 3.5 to 51 eV have been measured using high resolution (∼0.05 eV FWHM) dipole (e,e) spectroscopy. A wide-range spectrum, covering both the valence shell and the S 2p and 2s inner shells, has also been obtained from 5 to 260 eV at low resolution (∼1 eV FWHM), and this has been used to determine the absolute oscillator strength scale using valence shell TRK (i.e., S(0)) sum-rule normalization. The present measurements have been undertaken in order to investigate the recently discovered significant quantitative errors in our previously published low resolution dipole (e,e) work on sulphur dioxide (Cooper et al., Chem. Phys. 150 (1991) 237; 150 (1991) 251). These earlier measurements were also in poor agreement with other previously published direct photoabsorption measurements. We now report new absolute photoabsorption oscillator strengths using both high and low resolution dipole (e,e) spectroscopies. These new measurements cover a wider energy range and are much more consistent with the previously published direct photoabsorption measurements. The accuracy of our new measurements is confirmed by an S(−2) dipole sum-rule analysis which gives a static dipole polarizability for sulphur dioxide in excellent agreement (within 3.5%) with previously reported polarizability values. Other dipole sums S(u) (u=−1,−3 to −6,−8,−10) and logarithmic dipole sums L(u) (u=−1 to −6) are also determined from the presently reported absolute oscillator strength distributions.