Supersonic beams

Nozzle Beams, Supersonic (Anderson, Andres, Fenn). Nuclear Magnetic Relaxation Methods for the Study of 10 275... 

Supersonic beam. Supersonic beam techniques are a well established means for producing intense beams of hyperthermal species with narrow energy distributions. Atomic oxygen may be accelerated to hyperthermal... 

As with most methods for studying ion-molecule kinetics and dynamics, numerous variations exist. For low-energy processes, the collision cell can be replaced with a molecular beam perpendicular to the ion beam [106]. This greatly reduces the thennal energy spread of the reactant neutral. Another approach for low energies is to use a merged beam [103]. In this system the supersonic expansion is aimed at the tluoat of the octopole, and the ions are passed tluough... 

Several instniments have been developed for measuring kinetics at temperatures below that of liquid nitrogen [81]. Liquid helium cooled drift tubes and ion traps have been employed, but this apparatus is of limited use since most gases freeze at temperatures below about 80 K. Molecules can be maintained in the gas phase at low temperatures in a free jet expansion. The CRESU apparatus (acronym for the French translation of reaction kinetics at supersonic conditions) uses a Laval nozzle expansion to obtain temperatures of 8-160 K. The merged ion beam and molecular beam apparatus are described above. These teclmiques have provided important infonnation on reactions pertinent to interstellar-cloud chemistry as well as the temperature dependence of reactions in a regime not otherwise accessible. In particular, infonnation on ion-molecule collision rates as a ftmction of temperature has proven valuable m refining theoretical calculations. 

Syage J A, Felker P M and Zewail A H 1984 Picosecond dynamics and photoisomerization of stilbene in supersonic beams. I. Spectra and mode assignments J. Chem. Phys. 81 4685-705... 

Valentin J J, Coggiola M J and Lee Y T 1977 Supersonic atomic and molecular halogen nozzle beam source Rev. Sc/. Instrum 48 58-63... 

Gorry P A and Grice R 1979 Microwave discharge source for the production of supersonic atom and free radical beams J. Rhys. E Sc/. 12 857-60... 

Dietz T G, Duncan M A, Powers D E and Smalley R E 1981 Laser production of supersonic metal cluster beams J. Chem. Rhys. 74 6511-12... 

Kaiser R I and Suits A G 1995 A high-intensity, pulsed supersonic carbon course with C( P ) kinetic energies of 0.08-0.7 eV for crossed beam experiments Rev. Sc/. Instrum. 66 5405-11... 

Sinha M P, Schulz A and Zare R N 1973 Internal state distribution of alkali dimers in supersonic nozzle beams J. Chem. Phys. 58 549-56... 

The fonnation of clusters in the gas phase involves condensation of the vapour of the constituents, with the exception of the electrospray source [6], where ion-solvent clusters are produced directly from a liquid solution. For rare gas or molecular clusters, supersonic beams are used to initiate cluster fonnation. For nonvolatile materials, the vapours can be produced in one of several ways including laser vaporization, thennal evaporation and sputtering. 

Smalley R E 1985 Supersonic cluster beams an alternative approach to surface science Comparison of Ab Initio Quantum Chemistry with Experiment for Small Molecules ed R J Bartlett (Boston Reldel)... 

Alford J M, Weiss F D, Laaksonen R T and Smalley R E 1986 Dissociative chemisorption of H2 on niobium cluster ions. A supersonic cluster beam FT-ICR experiment J. Rhys. Chem. 90 4480... 

Why are fhese beams, or jefs, distinguished from effusive beams by fheir description as supersonic In some ways fhis description is rafher misleading, firsf because particles in an effusive beam may well be fravelling af supersonic velocities and, second, because fhe name implies fhaf somefhing special happens when fhe particle velocities become supersonic whereas fhis is nof fhe case. Whaf supersonic is meanf fo imply is fhaf fhe particles may have very high Mach numbers (of fhe order of f 00). The Mach number M is defined as... 

If a particularly parallel beam is required in the chamber into which it is flowing the beam may be skimmed in the region of hydrodynamic flow. A skimmer is a collimator which is specially constructed in order to avoid shockwaves travelling back into the gas and increasing 7). The gas that has been skimmed away may be pumped off in a separate vacuum chamber. Further collimation may be carried out in the region of molecular flow and a so-called supersonic beam results. When a skimmer is not used, a supersonic jet results this may or may not be collimated. 

It might be thought that the small number of molecules in a typical supersonic jet or beam would seriously limit the sensitivity of observation of the spectra. Flowever, the severe rotational cooling which may be produced results in a collapsing of the overall intensity of a band into many fewer rotational transitions. Vibrational cooling, which greatly increases the population of the zero-point level, concentrates the intensity in few vibrational transitions, and these two effects tend to compensate for the small number of molecules. 

In a skimmed supersonic jet, the parallel nature of the resulting beam opens up the possibility of observing spectra with sub-Doppler resolution in which the line width due to Doppler broadening (see Section 2.3.4) is reduced. This is achieved by observing the specttum in a direction perpendicular to that of the beam. The molecules in the beam have zero velocity in the direction of observation and the Doppler broadening is reduced substantially. Fluorescence excitation spectra can be obtained with sub-Doppler rotational line widths by directing the laser perpendicular to the beam. The Doppler broadening is not removed completely because both the laser beam and the supersonic beam are not quite parallel. 

New to the fourth edition are the topics of laser detection and ranging (LIDAR), cavity ring-down spectroscopy, femtosecond lasers and femtosecond spectroscopy, and the use of laser-induced fluorescence excitation for stmctural investigations of much larger molecules than had been possible previously. This latter technique takes advantage of two experimental quantum leaps the development of very high resolution lasers in the visible and ultraviolet regions and of the supersonic molecular beam. 

Beam Spectroscopy. Both specificity and sensitivity can be gready enhanced by suppressing coUisional and Doppler broadening. This is accompHshed in supersonic atomic and molecular beams (296) by probing the beam transversely to its direction of dow in a near-coUisionless regime. 

We have so far assumed that the atoms deposited from the vapor phase or from dilute solution strike randomly and balHstically on the crystal surface. However, the material to be crystallized would normally be transported through another medium. Even if this is achieved by hydrodynamic convection, it must nevertheless overcome the last displacement for incorporation by a random diffusion process. Therefore, diffusion of material (as well as of heat) is the most important transport mechanism during crystal growth. An exception, to some extent, is molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) (see [3,12-14] and [15-19]) where the atoms may arrive non-thermalized at supersonic speeds on the crystal surface. But again, after their deposition, surface diffusion then comes into play. 

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