Differential cross sections for ionization of atmospheric gases by electron impact

Absolute values of doubly differential cross sections for electron ejection in collisions of fast electrons with H-2, N-2, CO and CO2 molecules have been measured at the electron ejection angle of 54.5 degrees, in the incident electron energy range 100-1000 eV and in the ejected electron energy range 5-50 eV. Singly differential cross sections are also determined using a normalization procedure. The measured cross sections agree well with available data of other authors, except for those on e(-)-H-2 at 1000 eV, where a disagreement of up to a factor of 3 is observed. However, a rather good agreement is found between experimental data of this work at high energies and calculations using the Born approximation.