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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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We experimentally probed the low-energy electron-induced dissociation of acetonitrile and acetonitrile- d 3 and performed density functional theory calculations to support the experimental results. The previous studies on electron attachment to acetonitrile presented a number of contradictory findings, which we aimed to resolve in the present study. We observed the formation of H - , CH 2 - , CH 3 - , CN - , CCN - , CHCN - and CH 2 CN - anions and the corresponding deuterated fragments for acetonitrile- d 3 by dissociative electron attachment, and measured ion yields curves of each fragment. We saw no evidence for associative electron attachment to form the parent ion in these measurements. We also have measured the kinetic energy and angular distribution of selected fragments using a velocity map imaging (VMI) spectrometer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]