Electron-impact dissociation and ionization of NO + ions

Abstract Absolute cross sections for electron-impact ionization and dissociation of NO + ions are reported. Simple ionization to NO 2+ ion and production of singly charged N + and O + and doubly charged N 2+ and O 2+ fragments have been investigated. The animated electron-ion crossed-beam method is applied in the energy range from the respective thresholds up to 2.5 keV. The maximum of the simple ionization cross section is found to be (3.49 ± 0.07) × 10 −17 cm 2 at 135 eV. The total cross sections for N + and O + fragments at the maximum are found to be (13.9 ± 1.0) × 10 −17 cm 2 and (14.0 ± 1.4) × 10 −17 cm 2 , respectively, both at an energy of 85 eV. By performing careful magnetic field scans of the detected signal, contributions of dissociative excitation and dissociative ionization to N + and O + production are determined separately. The cross sections for asymmetric dissociative ionization to N 2+ and O 2+ are found to be over one order of magnitude smaller. Distributions of the kinetic energy release to the fragments are determined for all dissociation processes.