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University of Innsbruck Institute of Ion Physics, Technikerstrasse 25 A-6020 Innsbruck 
Austria Tel. +43(0)5125076268 stephan.denifl [at] uibk [dot] ac [dot] at |
My scientific research covers the field of experimental studies of inelastic scattering of electrons with atoms, molecules and clusters. Thereby typical electron energies starting from close to zero eV up to 100 eV are investigated where the cross sections for electron attachment (< 20 eV) and electron ionization (~70-100 eV) have their respective maxima. I started my investigations with determining the electron ionization cross sections for multiple charged rare gases. These ionization processes are important for fusion plasmas and other environments with an abundance of energetic electrons. Subsequently I extended my research to biomolecules and studied low energy electron attachment to building blocks of DNA. These studies were initiated by a previous observation from a group in Sherbrooke, Canada, that irradiation of a plasmid DNA film by low energy electrons leads to efficient formation of DNA strand breaks. The aim in studying the building blocks was to investigate the underlying mechanism of DNA damage on the molecular level. In the course of these studies with biomolecules one became witness of the impressive ability of low energy electrons to induce site selective bond cleavages in molecules upon electron capture. This features interesting applications in the field of astrochemistry. In order to follow-up this question our group recently has started to embed molecules in extremely cold helium droplets which provide a temperature of 0.37 K. Helium droplets represent a perfect environment for studying electron induced chemistry in agglomerates consisting of molecule with astrochemical relevance. One of our future emphases herein lies in the molecular synthesis induced by electron attachment or electron ionization.
