A new experimental approach to investigate the kinetics of low energy electron attachment reactions

Journal article

In this paper we describe a novel approach to study electron attachment reactions in an atmospheric pressure nitrogen buffer gas using a newly developed instrument. The instrument consists of an ion mobility mass spectrometer coupled, via a supersonic molecular beam, to a quadrupole mass spectrometer. The application of this instrument to investigate electron attachment to SF6 is described. Density-normalised electron attachment coefficients to SF6 determined from both the loss of electron flux and the axial distribution of product anions SF6 - and SF5 - in the drift tube at E/N = 4-8 × 10-18 V cm2 are reported. By accelerating anions in the supersonic molecular beam, two reaction channels, i.e. SF6 - → SF5 - + F and SF6 - → F- + SF4 + F, have been observed by the collision-induced dissociation (CID) of ground state SF6 - with N2. The minimum energy required for the F- + SF4 + F CID channel has been determined to be 3.8 ± 0.3 eV. Finally, reactions between SF6 - and SO2 have also been studied by analysing arrival time spectra of both reactant and product (SO2F-, SO2F2 -) anions and the product distributions at various SO2 concentrations. © 1996 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Authors: Liu, Y; Mayhew, C; Peverall, R

• Publication status: Published
• Journal: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MASS SPECTROMETRY AND ION PROCESSES
• Volume: 152
• Issue: 2-3
• Pages: 225-242
• Publication date: 1996-02-29
• DOI: 10.1016/0168-1176(96)04345-5
• ISSN: 0168-1176
• Keywords: electron attachment; supersonic molecular beam; collision-induced dissociation; ion mobility mass spectrometer