Fig. 1: Schematic of triple-ionization channels in benzene trimer leading to three C6H\({}_{6}^{+}\) cations and measured ion time-of-flight (TOF) correlation spectrum.
a The sequential ionization (SI) of three molecules upon electron-impact; b The double sequential ionization creates outer-valence and inner-valence vacancies at two molecules followed by an additional intermolecular Coulombic decay (dSI + ICD) process; c One deep-lying inner-valence electron is ionized followed by the double ICD (dICD) process leading to the ionization of two neighboring molecules; d The electron transfer mediated decay (ETMD) process, where both inner-valence and outer-valence vacancies are created at one molecule, intermolecular electron transfer followed by ICD causes ionization of the third molecule. Green, blue and pink arrows denote electron emission, energy level, and intramolecular de-excitation, respectively; Yellow wavy lines: intermolecular energy transfer; Atomic colors: carbon (gray), hydrogen (white). e Measured TOF correlation map between the first and the sum of the second and third detected cations. The green, indigo, and orange arrows denote the complete \({{{{{{{{{\rm{C}}}}}}}}}_{6}{{{{{{{{\rm{H}}}}}}}}}_{6}}^{+}+{{{{{{{{{\rm{C}}}}}}}}}_{6}{{{{{{{{\rm{H}}}}}}}}}_{6}}^{+}+{{{{{{{{{\rm{C}}}}}}}}}_{6}{{{{{{{{\rm{H}}}}}}}}}_{6}}^{+}\) Coulomb explosion, one hydrogen loss, and the 13C isotope channels, respectively. The count intensity is color-coded on a linear scale. Source data in Fig. 1e are provided as a Source Data file.
