Investigation of the dynamics and threshold behavior of endothermic negative ion-neutral reactions

The studies yielded thermochemical and scattering data which are needed for understanding the ion chemistry of plasmas, and in the development of certain devices which utilize plasmas, such as MHD generators. The characteristics of various negative ion sources, including conventional electron impact, sputtering and glow discharge sources, were extensively explored. Energy thresholds for selected collision induced dissociation reactions involving PO(-) energies, heats of formation and electron affinities of the corresponding neutral molecules were derived from these data. In addition, energy thresholds for endothermic electric transfer reactions involving PO(-), PO2(-), CO2(-), FeO2(-), BO(-), BO2(-), MoO(-), MoO2(-), MoO3(-), WO2(-), and WO3(-) were determined, and again, these data were utilized to calculate electron affinities of the corresponding molecular species. A crossed ion molecular beam scattering apparatus was used to investigate the kinetics, dynamics and energy transfer characteristics of the negative ion neutral reactions, O(-) + H2(D2) yields OH(-)(OD(-)) + H(D) in very low translational energy regime.