Electron impact ionization of C60 revisited: corrected absolute cross section functions

We report corrected absolute partial ionization cross sections for the various ions produced by electron impact on C60. The correction takes into account ion losses due to metastable fragmentation processes which occur during the flight time of the ions from the ion source to the detector in a two-sector-field mass spectrometer. Due to these ion losses, previously reported absolute partial and total ionization cross-sections were too small by factors ranging from 1.025 to 2. The corrected cross-sections reported here are in good agreement with cross-sections recently reported by two other groups using experimental techniques which are largely insensitive to ion losses caused by metastable decay processes.