Electron impact calculations of total ionization cross sections for environmentally sensitive diatomic and triatomic molecules from threshold to 5 keV

In this paper we report calculations of the total ionization cross sections, Q ion , for environmentally sensitive molecules, namely CO, CO 2 , CS, OCS, CS 2 and S 2 , upon electron impact for energies from circa threshold to 5000 eV. Spherical complex optical potential (SCOP) formalism is employed to evaluate total inelastic cross sections, Q inel . Total ionization cross sections, Q ion , are extracted from the total inelastic cross sections, using a semi-empirical formalism developed by us, called the 'complex spherical potential-ionization contribution' (CSP-ic) method. The present results are compared with both theoretical and experimental data available in the literature and overall good agreement is observed for all the reported molecules.