Dissociative attachment of electrons to excited molecules

Abstract

The development and the first results from an experiment to carry out dissociative attachment to excited molecules are discussed. A brief summary of the relevance and status of such measurements are given. Apart from measuring the absolute cross sections from excited and state selected SO₂ molecule, we have been able to characterize the negative ion resonances using the excited state dissociative attachment. In addition, 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.