First Experimental Determination of the lonization Potentials of Berkelium and Californium

摘要

The first ionization potential is a fundamental property of an element and is of great importance for many physical and chemical processes. Its accurate determination enables one to identify systematic trends in binding energies from element to element, and to draw conclusions on the electronic structure of atoms, since the first ionization potential is directly connected to the atomic spectrum: The energy levels can either be given as (negative) binding energies, where the ionization potential represents the energetic zero point, or as (positive) excitation energies. In this case the level energy E_n for n --> x converges to the ionization potential.