Electronic structure of iron(II) and (III) fluorides using X-ray emission and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopies

Abstract

Iron(II) and (III) fluorides have been studied using X-ray emission (XE) and photoelectron (XP) spectroscopies. XE data enable the XP peaks to be identified unequivocally; in the iron(III) compound the F 2p and Fe 3d orbitals were shown to have almost identical energy. The F Kα XE peak profile showed the Fe–F band to be more covalent in ferric than ferrous fluoride. Whilst the F 1s binding energy was the same for both compounds a peak shift of 3.0–3.5 eV to higher binding energies was found for all iron orbitals upon oxidation. The rapid reduction of iron(III) to iron(II) by argonion bombardment was observed.