Suppression of low-energy dissociative electron attachment in Fe(CO)₅ upon clustering

Abstract

In this work, we probe anion production upon electron interaction with Fe(CO)5 clusters using two complementary cluster-beam setups. We have identified two mechanisms that lead to synthesis of complex anions with mixed Fe/CO composition. These two mechanisms are operative in distinct electron energy ranges. It is shown that the elementary decomposition mechanism that has received perhaps the most attention in recent years (i.e., dissociative electron attachment at energies close to 0 eV) becomes suppressed upon increasing aggregation of iron pentacarbonyl. We attribute this suppression to the electrostatic shielding of a long-range interaction that strongly enhances the dissociative electron attachment in isolated Fe(CO)5.

Low Energy Electron- and Ion-Induced Surface Reactions of Fe(CO)5 Thin Films

“…Low energy electron interaction with gas phase clusters of Fe(CO) 5 have also be conducted, representing a step closer to FEBID by including intermolecular interactions. DEA processes involving pure Fe(CO) 5 clusters, and Fe(CO) 5 /Ar clusters 13,18 again identified Fe(CO) 4…”

“…− as the primary product, although its intensity was lower than observed for the isolated gas phase studies, suggesting that DEA is suppressed by intermolecular interactions. 13 In contrast to the isolated gas phase studies, ions containing two and three iron atoms were identified. The synthesis of these more complex heteronuclear anions was attributed to self-scavenging, 18 where anions attach to monomer units.…”

Electron collisions with cyanoacetylene HC3N : Vibrational excitation and dissociative electron attachment

“…Still, as is illustrated in figure 8, the mass resolution is high enough to determine the branching ratios between the three fragments reliably. The spectrum is cumulative 41,42 -it has been obtained as a sum of the mass spectra in the energy range 3 to 8 eV. The dashed lines show the individual contributions of the three close-lying fragments and the full red line shows their sum.…”

Atomistic simulation of the FEBID-driven growth of iron-based nanostructures

“…Fe(CO) 5 is one of the most common FEBID precursors used to fabricate magnetic nanostructures for magnetic sensing, spintronics, and magnetologic technologies [23,[30][31][32][33][34]. Apart from that, a large number of gas-phase and surface science experiments have been performed over the last years to study the electron-induced dissociation mechanisms for isolated Fe(CO) 5 molecules [35][36][37], those embedded in a cluster environment [38][39][40][41], and condensed on a surface in the form of Fe(CO) 5 thin films [42,43].…”