Femtosecond Interatomic Coulombic Decay in Free Neon Clusters: Large Lifetime Differences between Surface and Bulk

A quantitative determination of 2s vacancy lifetimes in surface and bulk atoms of free Ne clusters has been made. While for free atoms the 2s inner-valence hole has a ps lifetime, it reduces to 6+/-1 fs for cluster bulk atoms. For surface atoms, the lifetime is on average longer than 30 fs. The lifetime estimate was obtained from fits of high-resolution photoelectron spectra of Ne clusters. The shortening of the lifetime is attributed to the coordination dependent interatomic Coulombic decay, which is extremely sensitive to internuclear distances.