Eur. Phys. J. D (2016) 70: 74
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2016-60715-7

Regular Article

Electron energy-loss spectroscopy of excited states of the pyridine molecules^*

¹ Department of Physics of Electronic Phenomena, Faculty of Applied Physics and Mathematics, Gdańsk University of Technology, 80-233 Gdańsk, Poland
² Department of Control and Power Engineering, Faculty of Ocean Engineering and Ship Technology, Gdańsk University of Technology, 80-233 Gdańsk, Poland

^a e-mail: marzubek@pg.gda.pl

Received: 18 December 2015
Received in final form: 18 February 2016
Published online: 5 April 2016

Abstract

Electron energy-loss spectra of the pyridine, C₅H₅N, molecules in the gas phase have been measured to investigate electronic excitation in the energy range 3.5–10 eV. The applied wide range of residual electron energy and the scattering angle range from 10° to 180° enabled to differentiate between optically-allowed and -forbidden transitions. These measurements have allowed vertical excitation energies of the triplet excited states of pyridine to be determined and tentative assignments of these states to be proposed. Some of these states have not been identified in the previous works.