Electron-impact dissociation of ozone cations toO+fragments

Abstract

Absolute cross sections for electron-impact dissociation of ${{\text{O}}_{3}}^{+}$ ions yielding an ${\mathrm{O}}^{+}$ fragment are measured. The animated electron-ion crossed-beam method is applied in the energy range from 1 eV to 2.5 keV. The maximum total cross section for ${\mathrm{O}}^{+}$ fragment production is found to be $(3.6\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.3)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}16}$ ${\mathrm{cm}}^{2}$ at 75 eV and such a large value of the cross section extends down to low energies. The threshold energy is found to be below 2 eV. Contributions of dissociative excitation and dissociative ionization to ${\mathrm{O}}^{+}$ fragment production are determined separately. The total kinetic energy release distributions are determined at select electron energies. Present data are discussed and compared with recent results [S. H. M. Deng et al., Phys. Rev. A 82, 062715 (2010)].