The Dissociation of Nitrogen and Carbon Monoxide by Electron Impact

The energies of the dissociation products of ${\mathrm{N}}_2$ and CO formed by electron impact have been studied. The kinetic energy distributions of ${\mathrm{C}}^{+}$ ions from CO and ${\mathrm{N}}^{+}$ ions from ${\mathrm{N}}_2$ have been measured and for both gases the most probable kinetic energy of the ions is about 3 volts. The variation with electron energy of the probability of production of ${\mathrm{N}}^{+}$ ions from ${\mathrm{N}}_2$ and ${\mathrm{C}}^{+}$ ions from CO (the ions having specified energies) has been studied. The minimum electron energies necessary to produce ${\mathrm{C}}^{+}$ and ${\mathrm{N}}^{+}$ ions of specified energy have been determined and they satisfy the requirements of the principle of conservation of energy. From these measurements heats of dissociation as follows have been determined: The following are probably the dissociation processes detected in the experiments: Negative ions ($0^{-}$) were observed and are believed to result from the following processes: