Kinetic energy dependence and potential energy surface of the spin-forbidden reaction Sm+ (8F) + N2O (1Σ+) → SmO+ (6Δ) + N2 (1Σg+).

The kinetic energy dependence of the title reaction is examined using guided ion beam tandem mass spectrometry. Because this reaction is spin-forbidden, crossings between octet and sextet hypersurfaces presumably must occur. Furthermore, Sm+ must transition from a 4f66s1 configuration in the reactant to 4f55d2 in order to have the orbital occupancy required to form the triple bond in SmO+ (6Δ). Despite being strongly exothermic (∼4 eV), the reaction proceeds with low efficiency (18% ± 4%) via a barrierless process at low energies. Below ∼0.3 eV, the cross section follows a kinetic energy dependence that roughly parallels that of the collision rate for ion-dipole reactions. At higher collision energies, the reaction cross section increases until it follows the trajectory cross section closely from 3 to 5 eV, indicating that another pathway opens on the reaction hypersurface. Modeling this increase yields a threshold energy for this new pathway at 0.54 ± 0.05 eV. Theoretical potential energy surfaces that do not include spin-orbit interactions for the reaction show that there is a barrier of height 1.19 eV (MP2) or 0.49 eV [CCSD(T)] to insertion of Sm+ into the N2-O bond and that there are several places where octet and sextet surfaces can intersect and interact. By considering the distribution of spin-orbit states generated in the ion source, the internal energy of the N2O reactant, and the influence of coupling between electronic, orbital, and rotational angular momentum, the low-efficiency, exothermic behavior as well as the increase in efficiency at higher energies can plausibly be explained.