Angular distribution of metastable fragments of N-2(a(1)Pi(g)) produced by electron impact dissociative excitation of N2O

The angular distribution of metastable fragments N-2(a (1) Pi(g)) produced by electron impact dissociative excitation of N2O has been measured at two impact energies (15 and 40 eV) with time-of-flight (TOF) spectroscopy. A simple TOF system which can be utilized for such studies is introduced. The parent molecular symmetry before dissociation was determined from the angular distribution, using this system. The angular distribution indicates that the process is direct dissociation, predominantly from a weakly bound (3) Pi-state.