SELECTIVE DETECTION OF O(S-1) AND CO(A (3)PI FOLLOWING ELECTRON-IMPACT ON CO USING SOLID XENON

The neutral metastable species O(S-1) and CO(a(3) Pi) produce distinct ly different red and UV emissions respectively within a few microsecon ds of their impact on a surface of solid Xe. This effect has been empl oyed as a novel means of detection in a crossed beam experiment to obt ain time-of-flight (TOF) spectra and relative cross sections of both s pecies following electron impact on carbon monoxide. TOF spectra of O( S-1) show five possible dissociation channels. Semi-quantitative parti al potential curves were constructed for the parent molecular states o f two of those channels. The relative cross section for O(S-1) product ion was made absolute by comparison with production of the same from O -2. The cross section reaches a maximum of 5 X 10(-19) cm(2) at 100 eV . The relative cross section for CO(a(3) Pi) production includes casca de from the higher triplet states of CO and is uncontaminated by the 1 0 eV metastable state of CO.