The goal of our research is to obtain a fundamental understanding of water radiolysis, an important topic that has been studied extensively since the discovery of natural radioactivity in 1896. Water radiolysis has applications for treatment of wastewater, radiation treatment of cancer, preservation of food, and cooling in nuclear reactors. Radiolysis of “dirty” water ice in the interstellar medium could have led to the synthesis of “complex” organic molecules which could be precursors for prebiotic molecules. To study the radiolysis of water, nanoscale-thin films of solid amorphous water are deposited on a Mo(110) single crystal substrate at 90 K in an ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) chamber with pressure as low as 5×10<sup>−10</sup> Torr. An electron gun is used to irradiate the thin films with low- and high- energy electrons ranging from ~5 to 1000 eV. Post-irradiation analysis of the species left behind in the film is done with temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) and infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy (IRAS). Because copious amounts of low-energy (&lt; 20 eV) secondary electrons are produced when high-energy radiation interacts with condensed matter, we wish to verify the hypothesis that it is these low-energy electrons that mediate high-energy condensed-phase water radiolysis.

Revisiting water radiolysis

249th National Meeting (2015)

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