DISSOCIATIVE ATTACHMENT OF ELECTRONS TO EXCITED MOLECULES

The development and the first results from an experiment to carry out dissociative attachment to excited molecules are discussed. A brief su mmary of the relevance and status of such measurements are given. Apar t from measuring the absolute cross sections from excited and state se lected SO2 molecule, we have been able to characterize the negative io n resonances using the excited state dissociative attachment. In addit ion, the state specificity of the electron attachment process has been used to derive information on the excited neutral state-itself which has not been possible using optical spectroscopy. The applicability of this technique to other species are also discussed.