Dissociation of multiply ionized isocyanic acid through electron impact.

The dissociation of singly to triply ionized isocyanic acid (HNCO) has been investigated by two- and three-dimensional covariance mapping techniques through electron impact ionization at an electron energy of 200 eV. The absolute cross sections for the various dissociation channels of up to triply ionized HNCO have been measured. The HNCO dications dissociate mostly into ion pairs, while the HNCO trications dissociate mostly into ion triples, both through all the possible bond cleavages and charge allocations. Some major ion-pair dissociation channels of HNCO2+ are supposed to be sequential dissociation through initial charge separation. The metastable decay traces caused by HNCO(2+)-->H(+)+NCO+ and HNCO(+)-->HCO(+)+N have been observed on the covariance map. (c) 2004 American Institute of Physics