Knowledge Bank

Supersonic jets of nitrogen, methane, cyclopropane, and azomethane are crossed with collimated 100 eV electrons. The $CH(B2\Sigma -\to X2\Pi )$ spectra resulting from the electron induced dissociation of $CH4,C3H6$, and $CH3N=NCH3$ can all be fit with a rotational temperature of $3900\pm 200\circ K$ for electron kinetic energies in the range of 30-100 eV. Fluorescence spectra of $N2+(B2\Sigma u+\to X2\Sigma g+)$ from the dissociative ionization of azomethane yield a rotational temperature of $45\circ K$, which is very similar to the temperature of $N2+$ which results from supersonic nitrogen $\mathrm{<mrow\; data-mjx-texclass="ORD">+</mrow>}e-$ collisions. These results can be used to help understand the mechanism of electron induced molecular dissociation.