Effects of temperature on the dissociative electron attachment to N2O

Abstract Electron attachment to N 2 O is studied in a beam experiment with high-energy resolution (40 meV fwhm). Two clearly resolved features are observed in the O-yield with peak energies at 0.55 and 2.4 eV due to dissociative electron attachment via two N 2 O − compound states. The low-energy peak increases dramatically when the gas temperature is raised from 300 to 675 K. From the temperature dependence of the threshold intensity, an activation energy of about 210 meV is obtained for O − formation. A time-of-flight analysis reveals that the translational energy released to O − is remarkably low with a maximum value of 0.23 eV at a primary energy of 2.3 eV.