Dissociative electron attachment to carbon tetrachloride probed by velocity map imaging

Abstract

Bond-breaking in CCl₄via dissociative electron attachment (DEA) has been studied using a velocity map imaging (VMI) spectrometer. A number of effects related to the dissociation dynamics have been revealed. The near-zero eV s-wave electron attachment, which leads to the production of Cl⁻ anions, is accompanied by a very efficient intramolecular vibrational redistribution. This is manifested by a small fraction of the excess energy being released in the form of the fragments' translation energy. A similar effect is observed for higher-lying electronic resonances with one exception: the resonance centered around 6.2 eV leads to the production of fast Cl₂⁻ fragments and their angular distribution is forward peaking. This behavior could not be explained with a single-electronic-state model in the axial recoil approximation and is most probably caused by bending dynamics initiated by a Jahn–Teller distortion of the transient anion. The CCl₂⁻ fragment has a reverse backward-peaking angular distribution, suggesting the presence of a long-distance electron hopping mechanism between the fragments.