Fragmentation dynamics and absolute dissociative electron attachment cross sections in the low energy electron collision with ethanol

Abstract

Dissociative electron attachment (DEA) to ethanol has been probed to study fragmentation dynamics using Time-of-Flight (ToF) mass spectrometric technique. Several fragment ions, namely, H⁻, O⁻, OH⁻, C₂H₃O⁻ and C₂H₅O⁻ have been observed. Extra effort has been made to detect low mass ions (here, H⁻). Absolute DEA cross sections for the formation of O⁻ and OH⁻ have been measured for the first time using relative flow technique (RFT). The threshold energy of different dissociation channels has been calculated using density functional theory (DFT) method. By combining the experimental and theoretical data, we found evidence of hydrogen migration in the production of O and C₂H₃O⁻ ions.