A crossed molecular beam study on the dynamics of F atom reaction with SiH4

In this report, the dynamics of the F+SiH4 reaction has been studied using the universal crossed molecular beam method. Angular resolved time-of-flight spectra have been measured for all reaction products in a single set of experiments. Two different reaction channels have been observed: HF+SiH3 and SiH3F+H. Product angular distributions as well as energy distributions were determined for these two product channels. Experimental results show that the HF product is forward scattered relative to the F atom beam direction, while the SiH3F product is backward scattered relative the F atom beam direction, suggesting that two reaction channels proceed with distinctive reaction dynamics. The relative branching ratios of the two channels have also been estimated.