Charge trapping and the desorption of anionic and metastable fragments by dissociative electron attachment to condensed N2O

We have studied dissociative electron attachment (DEA) to condensed N2O by measuring the charge trapping (CT) cross section for submonolayer quantities of N2O on Kr, and by monitoring the electron-stimulated desorption (ESD) of O- and metastable N-2* from N2O and N2O doped Kr and H2O films. Several new channels for DEA are revealed. The largest CT cross section, of approximately 3.5 x 10(-16) cm(2) (+/- 50%), is observed over the incident energy range 0.15-1.5 eV and is attributed to DEA, although the possibility that N2O- is also stabilized at the lowest energies cannot be excluded. The magnitude of the CT cross section represents an enhancement of more than a factor of 35 relative to the peak gas phase DEA cross section at 2.3 eV. This increase can be attributed to the interaction of the anion state with its polarizable environment. Additional anion states, at 7.0 +/- 0.6, 9.0 +/- 0.3, 15.9 +/- 0.3 and possibly 12.5 +/- 0.3 eV, contribute to the DEA yield of O-. Of these, the 9 and 15.9 eV resonances have no experimentally observed analogues in the gas phase. The charge and energy transfer between the 9.0 eV feature and the Kr*(-) state of multilayer Kr films indicates a Rydberg character for this N2O- state.