High temperature mass spectrometric study of polyatomic antimony species by electron impact

By observing the behaviour of the vapour phase of antimony at different temperatures it has been possible to outline the different ionization processes of the monoatomic and polyatomic species. Particularly, we have found evidence for the existence of triatomic molecules in the vapour phase and we have found their ionization potential to be 7.50 ± 0.13 eV. From the ionization efficiency curves we have deduced a set of critical potential values and, by combination with out ionization potential values, we have obtained the dissociation energies of the molecules and ions.