Laser-Induced Resonance Enhanced Multiphoton Ionization in Supersonic Beams

Abstract

Supersonic jet expansions have served as a means of producing ultracold molecules for spectroscopy[1] and as an injection technique for mass spectrometry[2]. This method has been limited largely to molecules which are sufficiently volatile to be heated into the gas phase where they can be mixed with a light carrier gas such as Ar. The focus of recent work in our laboratory though, has been to extend the supersonic jet technique to nonvolatile and thermally labile molecules[3–8]. A number of techniques have been developed for entrainaient of nonvolatiles into jet expansions including pulsed laser desorption[3–8], thermospray[7,9,10], direction liquid injection[11], and supercritical fluid injection[12–14].