Electron-impact dissociation and ionization of CN+ ions

Absolute cross sections are reported for electron-impact ionization and dissociation of CN+ ions. Simple ionization to CN2+ ions and formation of singly charged C+ and N+ and doubly charged C2+ and N2+ fragments have been investigated. The animated electron-ion crossed-beam method has been applied in the energy range from the respective reaction thresholds up to 2.5 keV. The maximum of the simple ionization cross section is found to be ( 5.37 +/- 0.14) x 10(-18) cm(2) at 115 eV. The maximum total cross sections for N+ and C+ fragment production are found to be ( 22.2 +/- 2.7) x 10(-17) and ( 18.9 +/- 1.2) x 10-(17) cm(2) at 85 eV, respectively. By performing careful magnetic field scans of the collected ions, contributions of dissociative excitation and dissociative ionization to the C+ and N+ fragment production are determined separately. The cross sections for asymmetric dissociative ionization to C2+ and N2+ are found to be more than one order of magnitude smaller. The kinetic energy release distributions are determined for all dissociation processes at selected electron energies. These distributions, together with the energy thresholds, provide additional information about the ground and excited states of the molecular ion.