Electron interactions with 1,2-ethylenediamine and dimethyldiazene

Abstract

In this work, a theoretical investigation on the electron interactions with 1,2-ethylenediamine and dimethyldiazene (also known as azomethane) is presented. Differential cross sections (DCS), integral cross sections (ICS), and momentum transfer cross sections (MTCS) for elastic scattering as well as total cross sections (TCS) and total absorption cross sections were determined in the 1-500 eV range. To describe the electron-target interaction and solve the scattering equations, a molecular complex optical potential (MCOP) approach combined with the Padé approximant technique was employed. Regarding the DCS, 1,2-ethylenediamine presented the f-wave pattern which was not seen in the results of dimethyldiazene. On the other hand, results of dimethyldiazene have shown a sharp feature at 2.0 eV in the ICS, MTCS, and TCS, which was assigned as the π* resonance originating from the nitrogen–nitrogen bond. Interestingly, the feature observed in dimethyldiazene was found to be slightly shifted toward low energy when compared to the resonance reported for the N2 molecule. The description of the polarization effects could be responsible for this discrepancy, and the methylation effect be responsible for the stabilization of the π* resonance of dimethyldiazene with respect to N2. To the best of our knowledge, this work represents the first extensive study regarding electron collisions with these molecules, being presented to motivate experimental investigations to be performed about these important and widely used building blocks.