Study of competing decay processes in small carbon clusters using time-resolved photoelectron imaging

Atomic clusters may often be considered as small pieces of bulk material; however they may also exhibit properties radically different both from the atomic species and from the condensed phase. Photoemission is one of the many powerful methods to investigate clusters and size-effects in such systems, with very often non monotonous size-evolution. In atomic clusters, the finite-size equivalent of photoemission effects can be studied in details: both direct (photoionization or photodetachment, analogous to photoelectric effect) and delayed (analogous to thermionic emission) processes exhibit many features that may differ from the bulk behavior. Time-resolved photoelectron velocity-map imaging is used to analyze these processes in the case of small carbon anion clusters as well as in fullerenes.