Dissociative electron impact ionization of N2O5

Abstract Electron impact ionization of dinitrogen pentoxide for incident electron energies up to about 25 eV has been investigated by use of a crossed beams quadrupole mass spectrometer system. The experiments reported in this paper detected the fragmentation products NO 2 + , NO + , O + , N + , and NO 3 + . No stable N 2 O 5 + ion was observed. The NO 3 + fragment, for which we determine an appearance energy 13.25±0.30 eV, has not been observed previously. This appearance energy is close to the calculated threshold.