Time-of-flight spectroscopy of ionic and metastable fragments from dissociating molecules

Progress is reported on research involving dissociation of molecules by electron bombardment. Time-of-flight techniques are used to determine the velocity distribution of metastable and ionic fragments. One recently completed experiment involved detection of proton fragments from dissociation of the hydrogen halides in the electron bombardment energy range of 20-60 electron volts. Threshold bombarding energies were obtained for several features in the proton velocity spectrum, and several of these features were identified as resulting from dissociation of molecular ions with a particular inner electron orbital hole. Other experiments described are: (1) an unsuccessful attempt to detect protons from the electron bombardment dissociation of the hydrogen molecular ion; (2) an ongoing attempt to detect, in coincidence, metastable and ionic fragments from dissociation of hydrogen; and (3) an experiment on proton fragments from the dissociation of water and hydrogen sulfide.