Electron scattering processes: fundamentals, challenges, advances, and opportunities

Abstract

Much effort has been devoted to describing qualitatively and quantitatively electron scattering processes due to their ever-increasing importance in many industrial and medical applications. We present achievements made in the last years, focusing on some of the advancements and recent progress in the field. Particular reference is made on concrete case studies to probe the level of accord in cross-section data obtained from experiments and theory, as well as on selected instrumentation developments to probe dynamics of dissociative processes induced by electron impact. We stress that the purpose of this colloquium paper is not to be a comprehensive review but rather to provide a snapshot of different research topics in electron scattering by pointing out certain challenges and, therefore, indicating opportunities to facilitate further experimental and theoretical work.

Dynamics of resonant low-energy electron attachment to ethanol-producing hydroxide anions

“…In DEA, a transient negative ion (TNI) resonance is formed by electron attachment, and the TNI may dissociate if the resonance exists for sufficient time before autodetachment occurs [5]. Feshbach resonances [6] are electronic states of TNIs that cannot autoionize by an electronic transition involving a single electron. These core-excited TNI resonances are established to play an important role in DEA [7][8][9], but they present significant challenges, even to highly sophisticated theoretical methods, due to the demands of an accurate description of electronic correlation to determine the potential energy and energy width of the resonance.…”

Dissociative electron attachment studies of gas-phase acetic acid using a velocity map imaging technique

“…Beyond its importance in the fundamental research of molecular physics, the development of advanced instrumentation to explore dissociative electron attachment (DEA) has benefited a wide range of other scientific and applied areas that involve low-energy electrons formed by high-energy irradiation [1]. A technology recently growing in popularity is a spectrometer for velocity map imaging (VMI), although already invented decades ago and used for DEA studies [2][3][4][5][6][7].…”