Journal of Chemical Physics, Vol.115, No.4, 1765-1768, 2001
Collisional decomposition of the sulfur hexaflouride anion (SF6-)
Insulating gas mixtures containing SF6 have been promoted to serve as replacements for pure SF6 in order to reduce SF6 atmospheric emission. It has been argued that some synergism may be achieved by choosing proper buffer gases in mixtures with SF6 such that the buffer gases efficiently slow down electrons into an energy range where the electron attachment cross section for SF6 is large. A complete understanding of the dielectric properties of SF6 mixtures obviously requires information about electron detachment from SF6- as collisional electron detachment may be the principal source of discharge initiation in SF6 mixtures. In this paper, we report total cross-section measurements for electron detachment and collision induced dissociation for collisions of SF6- with N-2 for collision energies ranging up to a few hundred eV. The experimental results are analyzed using a two-step collision model where the unimolecular decomposition of collisionally excited SF6- ions is described in a statistical framework.