CHARGE-SEPARATION REACTIONS OF N2O CATIONS FORMED BY LOW-ENERGY AND HIGH-ENERGY IONIZATION

Triple and quadruple coincidence charge-separation spectra of nitrous oxide ionized by single low-energy photons and by high-energy electrons are reported. Low-lying states of the molecular dication, which are populated at all energies, dissociate mainly into ion pairs by two-body reactions. The reaction producing N+ + N + O+ is weak at low excitation energy and may occur by a very fast secondary dissociation of intermediate dinitrogen ions. At high energy a major new effect is triple ionization followed by dissociation into three atomic ions. These ion triples produce a significant spurious contribution to the spectrum of ion pairs, and several sorts of pair which appear at high energy are mainly or entirely artifacts of this type.