Dissociative electron attachment to dinitrogen pentoxide, N2O5

Electron attachment was studied in gaseous dinitrogen pentoxide, N(2)O(5), for incident electron energies between a few meV and 10 eV. No stable parent anion N(2)O(5) (-) was observed but several anionic fragments (NO(3) (-), NO(2) (-), NO(-), O(-), and O(2) (-)) were detected using quadrupole mass spectrometry. Many of these dissociative pathways were found to be coupled and provide detailed information on the dynamics of N(2)O(5) fragmentation. Estimates of the cross sections for production of each of the anionic fragments were made and suggest that electron attachment to N(2)O(5) is amongst the most efficient attachment reactions recorded for nonhalogenated polyatomic systems.