Absolute cross sections for dissociative electron attachment and dissociative ionization of cobalt tricarbonyl nitrosyl in the energy range from 0 eV to 140 eV

We report absolute dissociative electron attachment (DEA) and dissociative ionization (DI) cross sections for electron scattering from the focused electron beam induced deposition (FEBID) precursor Co(CO)₃NO in the incident electron energy range from 0 to 140 eV. We find that DEA leads mainly to single carbonyl loss with a maximum cross section of 4.1 × 10^-16 cm², while fragmentation through DI results mainly in the formation of the bare metal cation Co⁺ with a maximum cross section close to 4.6 × 10^-16 cm² at 70 eV. Though DEA proceeds in a narrow incident electron energy range, this energy range is found to overlap significantly with the expected energy distribution of secondary electrons (SEs) produced in FEBID. The DI process, on the other hand, is operative over a much wider energy range, but the overlap with the expected SE energy distribution, though significant, is found to be mainly in the threshold region of the individual DI processes.