Dissociative attachment studies of halogen-containing molecules: Problems, applications and challenges

The dissociative attachment (DA) process appears in a surprisingly diverse number of research disciplines. Although gas phase studies have been carried out for approximately 30 years, there are no calculations of the cross sections for this process in molecules larger than diatomics. In this presentation, we review briefly the role of DA in several contexts generally unfamiliar to workers in atomic and molecular physics, and touch on some of the theoretical difficulties. We continue with a discussion of our work, both experimental and theoretical, on compounds containing a single halogen atom and conclude with results showing how the DA process can be used to study intramolecular electron transfer.