Electron-impact dissociative double ionization of N2 and CO: Dependence of transition probability on impact energy

We present an experimental and computational analysis of dissociative double ionization of N-2 and CO molecules under electron impact. Experiments are performed at three energies, viz. 1, 3, and 5 keV, in order to observe the effect of impact energy on the dissociative ionization kinematics. We compare the kinetic energy release (KER) distributions of the charge symmetric dissociation channels of N-2(2+) and CO2+ at these impact energies. An approximately linear trend between the transition energy and the expected KER values is inferred on the basis of the calculated potential energy curves of the dications. Experimentally, the normalized differential KER cross sections for these channels show an increasing trend in the low KER range and a decreasing trend in the high KER range as the electron-impact energy is increased. This observation indicates that the transition probability for excitation to different molecular ion states is not only a function of energy difference between the ground and excited states, but also a complicated function of the impact energy. In addition, nature of the observed trend in the differential KER cross sections differs significantly from their differential transition probability, which are calculated using inelastic collision model for fast-electron-impact case.