Dissociative Ionisation and Neutral Dissociation: CF4, a Case Study

Abstract

New results for the total neutral dissociation cross section and an estimate of the gross cross section for the production of neutral fluorine by electron impact on CF4 have been obtained by combining previously reported results for the total dissociation cross section and the counting cross section for the total dissociative ionisation. This advancement was made possible by recently reported results for multication formation obtained from coincidence experiments. The estimate of the neutral fluorine production cross section is of the same order of magnitude as the total dissociation cross section itself, a similarity which may explain why CF4 is such an effective etching gas. The available cross section data for electron impact energies between 5 and 200 e V are reviewed.