Investigating core-excited states of nitrosyl chloride (ClNO) and their break-up dynamics following Auger decay.

The fragmentation of ClNO upon resonant core-electron excitation to the LUMO and LUMO+1 orbitals at the N and O K-edges is investigated. The produced fragment ions were detected in coincidence with a position sensitive ion time-of-flight detector which enables deduction of the angular distribution of the ions. This facilitates a comparison between the two resonances and the two K-edges with respect to fragmentation time, transition dipole moment orientation, fragment yield of single-ion and ion-pair channels, and fragmentation mechanisms. We observe significant correlations between the core-excited site and the location of the bonds that are broken, as well as the dissociation time. Moreover, we observe preferential cleavage of specific bonds upon excitation to the LUMO and LUMO+1 states which can be attributed to their orbital character.