Abstract
A review of high-resolution autodetachment spectroscopy of negative ions is given. The coaxial laser-ion-beam technique is used to probe the autodetachment dynamics of several molecular negative ions. The NH - ( v = 1) ion is shown to decay mainly via vibrational autodetachment, whereas CH 2 CN - detaches via rotational autodetachment. The propensity rules implied by these systems are confirmed by PtN - , which is found to decay by both routes.