Evaporation of tungsten oxides: A mass-spectrometric study of the vapour contents

Abstract The evaporation of bulk oxides of WO2 and WO3 and oxidised tungsten surfaces (metallic tungsten heated in an oxygen atmosphere) have been studied by the means of mass-spectrometry. The principal constituents of the vapour are found to be molecules of WO2, WO3, W2O6 and W3O9. These results differ from earlier reports, where the presence of molecules smaller than W3O9 in the mass-spectrum was interpreted as an artifact due to electron impact dissociation of larger polymers.