Dissociative Electron Attachment to Polyatomic Molecules - V : Formic Acid and Propyl Amine

TL;DR

This study investigates how low-energy electrons attach and cause dissociation in complex molecules like formic acid and propyl amine, revealing that local molecular features influence dissociation more than overall symmetry.

Contribution

It provides new insights into dissociation dynamics, showing they depend on local functional group symmetry rather than the molecule's overall symmetry.

Findings

Dissociation dynamics are independent of overall molecular symmetry.

Fragment ion distributions depend on local functional group symmetry.

Results compare dissociation in complex molecules with simpler precursors.

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss the dissociative electron attachment process in Formic Acid and Propyl Amine. These are molecules containing more than one functional group and have low symmetry (Cs group). We measured the kinetic energy and angular distributions of fragment H^{-} ions from the resonances observed in these molecules and compared with that in the precursor molecules, namely - Water, Ammonia and Methane. Measurements suggest that the dissociation dynamics in bigger molecules are independent of overall symmetry of the molecule, rather depend only on the local symmetry of functional group and bond orientation factors.