Fragmentation of CO2 clusters following electron impact

A variety of techniques have been applied to study the interaction of elect rons with beams of CO2 molecules which are heavily clustered. Fragmentation of the clusters is monitored by detecting excited fragments directly or vi a the vacuum ultra-violet photons which they emit as they decay. The eviden ce obtained points to the conclusion that the excited molecules are essenti ally decoupled from the clusters during fragmentation. The shape of the exc itation functions are indicative of the dominance of optically allowed proc esses in the initial interaction.