Low energy electron induced reactions in fluorinated acetamide – probing negative ions and neutral stable counterparts*

Abstract

Abstract: Electron impact to trifluoroacetamide (CF3CONH2, TFAA) in the energy range 0–12 eV leads to a varietyof negative fragment ions which are formed via dissociative electron attachment (DEA). Theunderlying reactions range from single bond cleavages to remarkably complex reactions thatlead to loss of the neutral units HF, H2O and HNCO as deduced from their directly observed ioniccounterparts (M – H2O)−, (M – HF)− and (M – HNCO)−. Also formed are thepseudo-halogen ions CN− and OCN−. All these reactions proceed dominantly via a resonancelocated near 1 eV, i.e., electrons at subexcitation energies trigger reactions involvingmultiple bond cleavages. The electron induced generation of the neutral molecules HF,H2O and HNCO incondensed TFAA films is probed by temperature controlled thermal desorption spectrometry(TDS) which can be viewed as a complementary techniques to gas-phase experiments in DEA todirectly probe the neutral counterparts. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]