Control of chemical reactions with electron beams

Interaction between low-energy electrons and molecules can lead to dissociative electron attachment (DEA) or dissociative ionization (DI). In condensed matter, the resulting reactive fragments can attack adjacent molecules to yield larger products. In this thesis, reactions initiated by DEA to acetonitrile in condensed phase have been compared to the known gas phase fragmentation channels. Also, gas phase DEA experiments have been performed on chlorosilanes to study the effect of a variation of the organic ligands on the energy of their molecular orbitals and reactivity in DEA processes. Furthermore, hydroamination reactions induced by DI for different alkenes and amines have been investigated. A similar reaction of ammonia and carbon monoxide was shown to produce formamide (HCONH2), which is the smallest molecule to contain a peptide bond and thus represents an important building block of biologically relevant substances.