Quenching of the dissociative electron attachment resonances of O2 physisorbed on amorphous ice

Measurements of electron stimulated desorption (ESD) yields of O^?, at incident electron energies below 20 eV, from 0.15 monolayers (ML) of O₂ physisorbed at 20 K on a variety of molecular solids have been performed. It is observed that for O₂ condensed on 4 ML of H₂O, the O^? signal from dissociative electron attachment (DEA) to O₂ is entirely absent. We attribute this to a complete quenching of the dissociative ²Π_u, ²Σ⁺_g, and ²Σ⁺_u, resonances of O^?₂ by the adjacent water molecules.