ELECTRON ATTACHMENT TO MOLECULES AND ITS USE FOR MOLECULAR SPECTROSCOPY

Iztok Čadež,^a Richard I. Hall,^b Michel Landau,^b Francoise Pichou,^b
Manfred Winter,^b and Catherine Schermann^b

^a Institut Jožef Stefan, Jamova 39, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

^b Laboratoire de Dynamique des Ions, Atomes et Molecules, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 4 Place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France

Abstract

A short review of the use of electron attachment to molecules for molecular spectroscopy is presented. The main emphasis is given to the vibrational spectroscopy of molecular hydrogen that is based on detection of low-energy H^- ions from dissociative electron attachment. Some examples of the use of this method are presented.

Key words: dissociative electron attachment, vibrationally excited hydrogen molecules, molecular spectroscopy