Metastable fragment production in electron-methanol collisions

Dissociative excitation of methanol (CH3OH) by electron impact leading to the production of O(S-1) and CO(a(3)pi) has been studied in the energy range from threshold to 100 eV using a unique detector which is selectively sensitive to low energy metastable particles. Time of flight techniques are used to separate atomic and molecular fragment species. Energy considerations have allowed certain excitation channels producing O(S-1) to be identified.