Size dependent fragmentation of argon clusters in the soft x-ray ionization regime.
Photofragmentation of argon clusters of average size ranging from 10 up to 1000 atoms is studied using soft x-ray radiation below the 2p threshold and multicoincidence mass spectroscopy technique. For small clusters (N=10), ionization induces fast fragmentation with neutral emission imparting a large amount of energy. While the primary dissociation takes place on a picosecond time scale, the fragm