Importance of Neutral Detection in Electron Scattering Processes

Over the past several decades, significant resources of the atomic, molecular, and optical physics community have been directed towards understanding collisional processes with molecular targets. Electron-molecule interactions are present in a plethora of physicochemical processes in any matter since low-energy electrons (LEEs) are the most abundant products of ionizing radiation and plasmas. LEEs during collisions at energies below ionization thresholds of the molecular target can be scattered elastically or lead to the rotational, vibrational, and electronic excitation or electron attachment to the target. The excitation and attachment can lead to the neutral dissociation or dissociative electron attachment (DEA) process, respectively. However, non-charged product identification has been particularly challenging due to technical limitations in neutral detection. In this tutorial, we will discuss a two-step electron ionization technique [1] that allows overcoming this challenge as well as other alternative techniques for neutral detection.