EFFECTS OF TEMPERATURE ON THE DISSOCIATIVE ELECTRON-ATTACHMENT TO N2O

Electron attachment to N2O is studied in a beam experiment with high-e nergy resolution (40 meV fwhm). Two clearly resolved features are obse rved in the O-yield with peak energies at 0.55 and 2.4 eV due to disso ciative electron attachment via two N2O- compound states. The low-ener gy peak increases dramatically when the gas temperature is raised from 300 to 675 K. From the temperature dependence of the threshold intens ity, an activation energy of about 210 meV is obtained for O- formatio n. A time-of-flight analysis reveals that the translational energy rel eased to O- is remarkably low with a maximum value of 0.23 eV at a pri mary energy of 2.3 eV. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reser ved.