Eur. Phys. J. D (2021) 75: 270
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/s10053-021-00278-2

Regular Article – Atomic and Molecular Collisions

Dissociative electron attachment to methyl isocyanide

J. Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry, Czech Academy of Sciences, Dolejškova 3, 18223, Prague, Czech Republic

^b pamir.nag@jh-inst.cas.cz

Received: 18 August 2021
Accepted: 24 September 2021
Published online: 13 October 2021

Abstract

We experimentally probed the dissociation of methyl isocyanide, CH${}_3$NC, via low-energy electron attachment. We have measured the absolute dissociative electron attachment (DEA) cross section for each of the produced ions as a function of incident electron energy. We were able to observe the CH${}_2^{-}$, CH${}_3^{-}$, CN${}^{-}$, CNC${}^{-}$, CHNC${}^{-}$ and CH${}_2$NC${}^{-}$ anionic fragments as DEA products. Our experimental results are consistent with a previous report, and in addition, we observed the CH${}_2^{-}$ anion for the first time. To support these experimental results, we also have performed density functional theory (DFT) calculation at the B3LYP/aug-cc-pVTZ level of theory to find out which reaction channel(s) lead to the formation of a given anion.